Unrated

Privilege Escalation in Woodpecker Kubernetes Backend via Arbitrary ServiceAccount Selection

IdentifiersCVE-2026-61549CWE-269

CVE-2026-61549 is a privilege escalation vulnerability in Woodpecker deployments that use the Kubernetes backend. The flaw arises from unrestricted use of the Kubernetes backend configuration option for service account selection in pipeline pod specifications, allowing a user-controlled pipeline execution context to specify an arbitrary Kubernetes ServiceAccount within the pipeline namespace. Because the resulting pod inherits the RBAC permissions associated with the selected ServiceAccount, an attacker with sufficient repository-level access can cause CI pipeline workloads to execute with elevated Kubernetes privileges beyond those intended for that user or repository. The issue affects the trust boundary between repository contributors and the Kubernetes execution environment and can expose cluster resources and secrets accessible to higher-privileged ServiceAccounts.

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ANALYST BRIEF

Impact, mitigation & remediation

What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.

Impact

What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.

Successful exploitation allows a user with repository Push permission to run pipeline pods under a different ServiceAccount than intended, thereby inheriting that account's Kubernetes RBAC permissions. Depending on the privileges assigned to available ServiceAccounts in the pipeline namespace, this can lead to unauthorized access to secrets, database credentials, API keys, TLS material, and other sensitive cluster resources. In environments where a highly privileged ServiceAccount is present, exploitation can enable broad administrative actions and potentially full Kubernetes cluster compromise.

Mitigation

If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.

If patching cannot be performed immediately, limit Push access on repositories connected to Kubernetes-backed Woodpecker instances to trusted users only. Ensure the pipeline namespace does not contain privileged ServiceAccounts and that the default ServiceAccount has only minimal permissions. Disable automatic mounting of ServiceAccount tokens for accounts that should not be usable by pipelines. Enforce admission controls, such as OPA Gatekeeper, Kyverno, or Kubernetes ValidatingAdmissionPolicy, to reject pipeline pods that specify unexpected serviceAccountName values. Where possible, isolate workloads by using dedicated namespaces per organization or instance and avoid placing sensitive RBAC bindings in namespaces used for CI pipeline execution.

Remediation

Patch, then assume compromise.

Upgrade Woodpecker to version 3.16.0 or later on the v3 package line. For earlier package lines, apply the vendor fix associated with pull request #6792 and transition to a non-vulnerable release as soon as one is available for that line. Review Kubernetes backend configuration and validate that pipeline pod creation no longer permits arbitrary ServiceAccount selection by untrusted repository users.

PUBLIC EXPLOITS

Exploits

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VALID 0 / 0 TOTALView more in app

No public exploit code observed for this vulnerability.

EXPOSURE SURFACE

Affected products & vendors

Products and vendors Mallory has correlated with this vulnerability. Open in Mallory to drill down to specific CPE configurations and version ranges.

VendorProductType

Woodpecker-CiWoodpeckerapplication

Vendor-confirmed product mapping. Mallory continuously reconciles this list against your asset inventory.

ACTIVITY FEED

Recent activity

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0 SOURCESView more in app

No public activity observed for this vulnerability.

What this page doesn’t show

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Exposure mapping

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Threat actor evidence

Every observed campaign linking this CVE to a named adversary.

Associated malware

Malware families riding this exploit, with evidence and IOCs.

Detection signatures

YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.

Vendor-by-vendor mapping

Cross-references every affected SKU, including bundled OEM variants.

Social activity

Community discussion across Reddit, Mastodon, and other social sources.

EXTERNAL REFERENCES

MITRE CVE

cve.org · CVE-2026-61549

NVD

nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-61549

MITRE CWE · CWE-269

cwe.mitre.org

Privilege Escalation in Woodpecker Kubernetes Backend via Arbitrary ServiceAccount Selection

IdentifiersCVE-2026-61549CWE-269