Resource exhaustion in Kyverno
CVE-2026-23881
Kyverno is a policy engine designed for cloud native platform engineering teams. Versions prior to 1.16.3 and 1.15.3 have unbounded memory consumption in Kyverno's policy engine that allows users with policy creation privileges to cause denial of service by crafting policies that exponentially amplify string data through context variables. Versions 1.16.3 and 1.15.3 contain a patch for the vulnerability.
EPSS: 0.005 (41.8th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.
CVSS v3 metric
CVSS v3 base score 7.7 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H.
Affected products
- Kyverno — versions < 1.15.3, >= 1.16.0, < 1.16.3
Weakness classification (CWE)
References
- security-advisories@github.com (x_refsource_CONFIRM, Exploit, Mitigation, Vendor Advisory)
- security-advisories@github.com (Patch, x_refsource_MISC)
- security-advisories@github.com (Patch, x_refsource_MISC)
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2026-23881?
- CVE-2026-23881 is a high-severity vulnerability in Kyverno, classified under Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling. CVSS score: 7.7/10. Published 2026-01-27.
- How severe is CVE-2026-23881?
- High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.7 out of 10.