VulnerabilityPublished 9 Apr 2026Updated 14 Apr 2026

CVE-2026-40109: fluxcd notification-controller · Improper Authentication

Affects fluxcd notification-controllerSource CVE Database V5

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Not known to be exploited · CVSS 3.1 Low : upgrade to 1.8.3 when convenient.

Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 06:59 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

3.1Low

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 2% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 1.8.3

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: High
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: Low
Availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: High: A successful attack depends on conditions beyond the attacker's control. That is, a successful attack cannot be accomplished at will, but requires the attacker to invest in some measurable amount of effort in preparation or execution against the vulnerable component before a successful attack can be expected. For example, a successful attack may require an attacker to: gather knowledge about the environment in which the vulnerable target/component exists; prepare the target environment to improve exploit reliability; or inject themselves into the logical network path between the target and the resource requested by the victim in order to read and/or modify network communications (e.g., a man in the middle attack).
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: Low: Modification of data is possible, but the attacker does not have control over the consequence of a modification, or the amount of modification is limited. The data modification does not have a direct, serious impact on the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 9 Apr 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 29 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade notification-controller and fluxcd/notification-controller to 1.8.3.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
fluxcdnotification-controller	Affected <1.8.3	Fixed in 1.8.3
GitHubfluxcd/notification-controller`pkg:github/fluxcd/notification-controller`Other threats	Affected <1.8.3	Fixed in 1.8.3

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

Upgrade fluxcd notification-controller to version 1.8.3 or later, where this vulnerability is fixed. Since the vulnerability is resolved in this version, no additional mitigation steps are required. If upgrading is not immediately possible, ensure that the Receiver webhook URL and associated Kubernetes Secrets are protected to prevent unauthorized access.

Description

Flux notification-controller is the event forwarder and notification dispatcher for the GitOps Toolkit controllers. Prior to 1.8.3, the gcr Receiver type in Flux notification-controller does not validate the email claim of Google OIDC tokens used for Pub/Sub push authentication. This allows any valid Google-issued token, to authenticate against the Receiver webhook endpoint, triggering unauthorized Flux reconciliations. Exploitation requires the attacker to know the Receiver's webhook URL. The webhook path is generated as /hook/sha256sum(token+name+namespace), where the token is a random string stored in a Kubernetes Secret. There is no API or endpoint that enumerates webhook URLs. An attacker cannot discover the path without either having access to the cluster and permissions to read the Receiver's .status.webhookPath in the target namespace, or obtaining the URL through other means (e.g.leaked secrets or access to Pub/Sub config). Upon successful authentication, the controller triggers a reconciliation for all resources listed in the Receiver's .spec.resources. However, the practical impact is limited: Flux reconciliation is idempotent, so if the desired state in the configured sources (Git, OCI, Helm) has not changed, the reconciliation results in a no-op with no effect on cluster state. Additionally, Flux controllers deduplicate reconciliation requests, sending many requests in a short period results in only a single reconciliation being processed. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.8.3.

Impact

An attacker who obtains the Receiver webhook URL and uses any valid Google-issued token can trigger unauthorized Flux reconciliations. These reconciliations are idempotent and deduplicated, so they typically do not alter the cluster state if the desired configuration has not changed. There is no direct confidentiality, availability, or integrity impact beyond triggering these reconciliations. The difficulty in discovering the webhook URL limits exploitation opportunities.

Summary

The fluxcd notification-controller's gcr Receiver type prior to version 1.8.3 fails to validate the email claim in Google OIDC tokens used for Pub/Sub push authentication. This flaw allows any valid Google-issued token to authenticate against the Receiver webhook endpoint if the attacker knows the webhook URL. The webhook URL is generated using a hash of a random token and other parameters stored securely in Kubernetes Secrets, making discovery difficult without cluster access or leaked information. Upon authentication, the controller triggers reconciliations for resources specified in the Receiver configuration. However, because Flux reconciliations are idempotent and deduplicated, repeated or unauthorized triggers generally have limited practical impact. The vulnerability is resolved in version 1.8.3.

CWE-287Improper Authentication (opens in a new tab)
Class weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighOWASP Top 10 A07:2025: Authentication Failures (opens in a new tab)
When an actor claims to have a given identity, the product does not prove or insufficiently proves that the claim is correct.
MITRE discourages mapping vulnerabilities to this broad entry; the root cause is usually a more specific weakness.
Architecture and Design · Libraries or Frameworks
Use an authentication framework or library such as the OWASP ESAPI Authentication feature.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
OWASP Authentication (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V2.8.5 (opens in a new tab)
V2.8.4 (opens in a new tab)
V9.2.3 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Fake the Source of Data (opens in a new tab)
Utilizing REST's Trust in the System Resource to Obtain Sensitive Data (opens in a new tab)
Session Hijacking (opens in a new tab)
Token Impersonation (opens in a new tab)
Upload a Web Shell to a Web Server (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).
CWE-345Insufficient Verification of Data Authenticity (opens in a new tab)
Class weaknessOWASP Top 10 A08:2025: Software or Data Integrity Failures (opens in a new tab)
The product does not sufficiently verify the origin or authenticity of data, in a way that causes it to accept invalid data.
MITRE discourages mapping vulnerabilities to this broad entry; the root cause is usually a more specific weakness.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
XML Security (opens in a new tab)
REST Security (opens in a new tab)
JSON Web Token for Java (opens in a new tab)
REST Assessment (opens in a new tab)
Cross-Site Request Forgery Prevention (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V13.3.2 (opens in a new tab)
V3.5.3 (opens in a new tab)
V13.2.6 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
JSON Hijacking (aka JavaScript Hijacking) (opens in a new tab)
Cache Poisoning (opens in a new tab)
DNS Cache Poisoning (opens in a new tab)
Spoofing of UDDI/ebXML Messages (opens in a new tab)
Application API Message Manipulation via Man-in-the-Middle (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 17 Apr 2026, 11:44 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-287, CWE-345

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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