Flux notification-controller GCR Receiver missing email validation allows unauthorized reconciliation triggering
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- High
- Impact type
- Security bypass
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · Low · None
- Fix status
- Fixed
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA and GitHub. Impact type from CWE-287.
Summary
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.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| fluxcd | notification-controller | before 1.8.3 | 1.8.3 | Patch available | CNA |
| — | github.com/fluxcd/notification-controller (Go) | before 1.8.3 | 1.8.3 | Patch available | GHSA-h9cx-xjg6-5v2w |
- notification-controller Vendorfluxcd Affected before 1.8.3 Fixed in 1.8.3 Patch available CNA
- github.com/fluxcd/notification-controller (Go) Vendor— Affected before 1.8.3 Fixed in 1.8.3 Patch available GHSA-h9cx-xjg6-5v2w
Remediation
- Fix · CNA notification-controller (fluxcd) Fixed in 1.8.3
- Fix · GHSA-h9cx-xjg6-5v2w github.com/fluxcd/notification-controller (Go) Fixed in 1.8.3 Advisory →
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-40109
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-h9cx-xjg6-5v2w
References
More fluxcd vulnerabilities
- TI-2022-08687 Improper path handling in kustomization files allows path traversal CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.9
- TI-2022-08630 Improper kubeconfig validation allows arbitrary code execution CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.9
- TI-2021-18089 Privilege escalation to cluster admin on multi-tenant environments CVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8
- TI-2022-16473 Flux2 Helm Controller denial of service CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.7
- TI-2022-16460 Flux CLI Workload Injection CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.8
- TI-2022-08688 Improper path handling in Kustomization files allows for denial of service CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.7
Sources
- CVE-2026-40109 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-40109 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-h9cx-xjg6-5v2w · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
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