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IPAM controller service account granted unnecessary full access to Secrets

Moderate
tuminoid published GHSA-49pm-43hf-6xfq May 18, 2026

Package

gomod github.com/metal3-io/ip-address-manager (Go)

Affected versions

<= 1.12.3, <= 1.11.6

Patched versions

1.13.0, 1.12.4, 1.11.7

Description

Impact

IPAM is the IP address Manager for Cluster API Provider Metal3. The IPAM controller's ClusterRole granted full CRUD permissions (create, delete, get, list, patch, update, watch) on core/v1 Secrets. The controller never accesses Secrets during normal operation. If the controller pod were compromised (e.g. via supply chain attack or container escape), an attacker could leverage these excessive permissions to read, modify, or delete Secrets in the namespace, potentially exposing credentials and other sensitive data.

All users running ip-address-manager versions prior to the patched releases are affected.

Patches

Fixed in:

  • v1.11.7
  • v1.12.4
  • v1.13.0

Users should upgrade to the patched version for their release branch.

Workarounds

Manually remove the Secrets resource entry from the metal3-ipam-controller-manager-role ClusterRole:

# Remove this entire block from the ClusterRole
- apiGroups:
  - ""
  resources:
  - secrets
  verbs:
  - create
  - delete
  - get
  - list
  - patch
  - update
  - watch

References

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
High
Privileges required
High
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

CVE ID

CVE-2026-47190

Weaknesses

Execution with Unnecessary Privileges

The product performs an operation at a privilege level that is higher than the minimum level required, which creates new weaknesses or amplifies the consequences of other weaknesses. Learn more on MITRE.
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