Strimzi Cluster Operator: attacker-set watchedNamespace grants Secret read/write in other namespaces

Impact

Any user who can create a Kafka custom resource in their own namespace can set entityOperator.watchedNamespace to a namespace they do not own. The Cluster Operator obligingly creates a Role with full Secret CRUD in that target namespace and binds it to the Entity Operator ServiceAccount living in the attacker's namespace. The attacker mints a token for that ServiceAccount and reads or writes Secrets anywhere the Cluster Operator itself has permissions, regardless of STRIMZI_NAMESPACE. On a shared GPU cluster where tenants get namespaces and Strimzi runs cluster-wide, that is a tenant-to-tenant secret disclosure path: registry pull credentials, object-store keys, and model-repository tokens belonging to other workloads.

Who can reach it

An authenticated Kubernetes user or service account with rights to create a Kafka custom resource in any namespace the Cluster Operator watches. No cluster-admin required; the operator supplies the privilege escalation.

What to do

Upgrade the Strimzi Cluster Operator to 1.0.1 or 1.1.0 and let the operator Deployment roll - this is an operator pod restart, not a node or Kafka broker restart, and running Kafka clusters are not disrupted. Until then, narrow the Cluster Operator's cluster-scoped permissions, or restrict who may create Kafka custom resources via RBAC or an admission policy that pins entityOperator.watchedNamespace to the resource's own namespace. Audit existing Roles and RoleBindings the operator created for Entity Operator ServiceAccounts in namespaces that do not match their Kafka resource.

References

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