CVE-2026-44477 PUBLISHED

CloudNativePG: Metrics exporter allows privilege escalation to PostgreSQL superuser and OS RCE

Assigner: GitHub_M
Reserved: 06.05.2026 Published: 28.05.2026 Updated: 28.05.2026

CloudNativePG is a platform designed to manage PostgreSQL databases within Kubernetes environments. Prior to 1.29.1 and 1.28.3, the CloudNativePG metrics exporter opens its PostgreSQL connection as the postgres superuser via the pod-local Unix socket, then demotes the session with SET ROLE pg_monitor. SET ROLE changes only current_user; session_user remains postgres. Any SQL expression evaluated inside the scrape session can invoke RESET ROLE to recover real superuser privileges, then use COPY ... TO PROGRAM to spawn an OS-level subprocess as the postgres user inside the primary pod. The READ ONLY transaction flag does not block this; it gates writes to database state, not external processes. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.29.1 and 1.28.3.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H
CVSS Score: 9.4

Product Status

Vendor cloudnative-pg
Product cloudnative-pg
Versions
  • Version < 1.28.3 is affected
  • Version >= 1.29.0, < 1.29.1 is affected

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-250: Execution with Unnecessary Privileges CWE
  • CWE-271: Privilege Dropping / Lowering Errors CWE
  • CWE-426: Untrusted Search Path CWE