CVE-2026-41485
Kyverno Controller Denial of Service via forEach Mutation Panic
Description
Kyverno is a policy engine designed for cloud native platform engineering teams. Prior to versions 1.17.2 and 1.16.4, an unchecked type assertion in the `forEach` mutation handler allows any user with permission to create a `Policy` or `ClusterPolicy` to crash the cluster-wide background controller into a persistent CrashLoopBackOff. The same bug also causes the admission controller to drop connections and block all matching resource operations. The crash loop persists until the policy is deleted. The vulnerability is confined to the legacy engine, and CEL-based policies are unaffected. Versions 1.17.2 and 1.16.4 fix the issue.
How to fix CVE-2026-41485
To remediate CVE-2026-41485, upgrade the affected package to a fixed version below.
- —upgrade to 1.16.4 or later
- —upgrade to 1.16.4 or later
Is CVE-2026-41485 being exploited?
Low — EPSS is 0.1%, meaning exploitation activity has not been observed at scale.
Affected packages (2)
- from 0, < 1.16.4, >= 1.17.0, < 1.17.2
- >= 1.13.0, < 1.16.4
CVSS scores
| Source | Version | Severity | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| osv | CVSS 3.1 | HIGH7.7 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H |