CVE-2026-16543

Kong Operator's embedded Kong Kubernetes Ingress Controller (KIC) allows a user with namespace-scoped Secret creation privileges to cause a cluster-wide ingress configuration denial of service. The embedded KIC collects CA-certificate Secrets across all watched namespaces using a label selector alone, without ingress-class or namespace restrictions. The CA-certificate primary key is derived from a user-supplied field in the Secret. Duplicate CA-certificate IDs cause Kong Gateway to reject the entire configuration document and halting all ingress changes cluster-wide.

Published 29 Jul 2026, 16:17 UTC Last modified 29 Jul 2026, 16:17 UTC

7.1

CVSS 4.0 HIGH base score

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

Attack profile

The conditions required to exploit this vulnerability and its potential impact.

Attack vector Network

Attack complexity Low

Privileges required Low

User interaction None

Scope Not assessed

Confidentiality Not assessed

Integrity Not assessed

Availability Not assessed

Affected products

Product applicability statements supplied with the NVD record.

NVD has not published structured affected-product data for this record.

Weakness classification

CWE categories help security teams group the underlying software weakness.

CWECWE-400 CWECWE-862

Source references

External advisories, patches and technical reports attached to this CVE record.

NVD National Vulnerability Database recordnvd.nist.gov 01 Technical reference 02762ae7-200e-4b20-9b2b-a77d5b8fc4cb