Unintended Proxy or Intermediary in Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes Leading to Cross-Namespace Secret Disclosure (CVE-2026-72640) | HOL Guard CVE

Medium · CVSS 6.5CVE-2026-72640

Unintended Proxy or Intermediary in Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes Leading to Cross-Namespace Secret Disclosure

Answer in brief

CVE-2026-72640 records a Medium severity (CVSS 6.5) vulnerability in Unintended Proxy or Intermediary in Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes Leading to Cross-Namespace Secret Disclosure. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. The current feed maps Elastic/Eck Operator (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.

Analysis pending evidence review

HOL Guard separates source facts from reviewed analysis. See the methodology.

Published Aug 13, 2026Updated Sep 3, 2026Source checked Sep 27, 2026First seen by HOL Aug 13, 2026Material review Sep 3, 2026

Upstream Advisory

Key facts

Risk: Medium · CVSS 6.5
Exploitation: Not marked as known exploited
Affected software: 2 mapped packages or products
Fix availability: Not reported

Why this deserves its current priority

CVSS is 6.5. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. Treat this as a source-backed prioritization signal, not a statement about your environment.

Analysis status

Analysis pending evidence review

Factual feed record only; HOL analysis is not approved for indexing. Read the methodology.

Affected scope and exposure questions

The current feed maps Elastic/Eck Operator (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.

Affected products and reported versions
Product	Affected versions	Fixed versions
cpe:2.3:a:elastic:elastic_cloud_on_kubernetes::::::::	Not reported	Not reported

Mapped affected packages and fixed versions
Package	Affected range	Fixed version
Elastic/Eck Operatorgeneric	3.0.0	Not reported

Recommended response

Check inventory. Check lockfiles and deployed manifests for Elastic/Eck Operator.
Review the reported fix. Monitor this advisory for an available fix and review any installs of the affected package.

Evidence timeline and material changes

Published upstream
Aug 13, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:record
Source modified
Sep 3, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:record
First seen by HOL
Aug 13, 2026

Sources and claim methodology

Source referencediscuss.elastic.co

Upstream source description

The Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes (ECK) operator reads a list of secret references from an annotation on secrets it manages, and it accepts the namespace recorded in each reference without validating that the reference is authorized for the resource being reconciled. A user whose Kubernetes permissions are limited to their own namespace can write that annotation, trigger a reconcile, and cause the operator to use its cluster-wide secret permissions to copy the contents of a secret from any other namespace into a secret the user can read.

Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.