CVE-2021-41254

HIGHNVD 8.88.8—
EchelonGraph scoreMEDIUM confidence

This high-severity CVE scores 8.8 under NVD CVSS v3. EPSS exploit probability: 1.7%, top 17% of all CVEs by exploit prediction. GitHub Security Advisory data not yet ingested — confidence will rise once GHSA publishes (typical lag: hours to days for open-source ecosystem CVEs; never for infrastructure-only CVEs).

Triggered by: NVD CVSS baseline
Sources: epss, nvd
8.8
EchelonGraph verdictPlan a fixSerious severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet.
  • High severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
CISA-KEV: Not listedEPSS: 2%CVSS: 8.8Exploit: NoneExposed: 0

No vendor fix yet — apply a workaround or compensating control (WAF / firewall / segmentation) and watch for a patch.

kustomize-controller is a Kubernetes operator, specialized in running continuous delivery pipelines for infrastructure and workloads defined with Kubernetes manifests and assembled with Kustomize. Users that can create Kubernetes Secrets, Service Accounts and Flux Kustomization objects, could execute commands inside the kustomize-controller container by embedding a shell script in a Kubernetes Secret. This can be used to run kubectl commands under the Service Account of kustomize-controller, thus allowing an authenticated Kubernetes user to gain cluster admin privileges. In affected versions multitenant environments where non-admin users have permissions to create Flux Kustomization objects are affected by this issue. This vulnerability was fixed in kustomize-controller v0.15.0 (included in flux2 v0.18.0) released on 2021-10-08. Starting with v0.15, the kustomize-controller no longer executes shell commands on the container OS and the kubectl binary has been removed from the container image. To prevent the creation of Kubernetes Service Accounts with secrets in namespaces owned by tenants, a Kubernetes validation webhook such as Gatekeeper OPA or Kyverno can be used.

CVSS v3
8.8
EG Score
8.8(medium)
EPSS
75.4%
KEV
Not listed

Published

November 12, 2021

Last Modified

November 21, 2024

References (2)

Affected Packages

(1 across 1 ecosystem)
Go(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
github.com/fluxcd/kustomize-controller—0.15.0—

Weakness Classification(1)

MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 11× in last 7d / 50× in last 30d)

Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.

  1. 2026-07-11 08:25 UTCEPSS rescore
  2. 2026-07-11 08:25 UTCEPSS rescore
  3. 2026-07-09 19:07 UTCEPSS rescore
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  16. 2026-06-30 23:20 UTCEPSS rescore
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  18. 2026-06-30 06:00 UTCOSV refresh
  19. 2026-06-29 14:04 UTCEPSS rescore
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  21. 2026-06-28 04:54 UTCEPSS rescore
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  25. 2026-06-25 13:48 UTCEPSS rescore
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  1. 2026-06-25 13:48 UTCEPSS rescore
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  4. 2026-06-23 21:31 UTCEPSS rescore
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  6. 2026-06-22 14:24 UTCEPSS rescore
  7. 2026-06-21 14:55 UTCEPSS rescore
  8. 2026-06-21 01:58 UTCEPSS rescore
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  10. 2026-06-19 19:24 UTCEPSS rescore
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  22. 2026-06-13 22:58 UTCEPSS rescore
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  24. 2026-06-12 23:10 UTCEPSS rescore
  25. 2026-06-12 16:40 UTCOSV refresh
  26. 2026-06-11 13:58 UTCEPSS rescore
  27. 2026-06-11 13:58 UTCEPSS rescore
  28. 2026-06-10 22:16 UTCEPSS rescore
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  30. 2026-06-10 13:20 UTCEPSS rescore
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  35. 2026-06-06 13:46 UTCEPSS rescore
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  40. 2026-06-04 13:10 UTCEPSS rescore
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  42. 2026-06-02 20:11 UTCEPSS rescore
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  44. 2026-06-01 13:50 UTCEPSS rescore
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  46. 2026-05-31 22:29 UTCEPSS rescore
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  48. 2026-05-31 00:15 UTCEPSS rescore
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  50. 2026-05-29 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  51. 2026-05-28 13:43 UTCEPSS rescore
  52. 2026-05-28 13:43 UTCEPSS rescore
  53. 2026-05-27 13:39 UTCEPSS rescore
  54. 2026-05-27 13:39 UTCEPSS rescore
  55. 2026-05-26 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  56. 2026-05-26 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  57. 2026-05-26 07:37 UTCEG score recompute
  58. 2026-05-26 04:16 UTCOSV refresh

Related CVEs(same CWE)

Frequently asked(5)

What is CVE-2021-41254?
CVE-2021-41254 is a high vulnerability published on November 12, 2021. kustomize-controller is a Kubernetes operator, specialized in running continuous delivery pipelines for infrastructure and workloads defined with Kubernetes manifests and assembled with Kustomize. Users that can create Kubernetes Secrets, Service Accounts and Flux Kustomization objects, could…
When was CVE-2021-41254 disclosed?
CVE-2021-41254 was first published in the National Vulnerability Database on November 12, 2021, with the most recent update on November 21, 2024. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.
Is CVE-2021-41254 actively exploited?
CVE-2021-41254 is not currently on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. FIRST EPSS estimates a 75.4% percentile likelihood of exploitation in the next 30 days — higher percentiles indicate greater predicted risk.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2021-41254?
CVE-2021-41254 has a CVSS v3 base score of 8.8 (NVD).
How do I remediate CVE-2021-41254?
Patch to the fixed version published by the affected vendor. Where vendor advisories exist for CVE-2021-41254, EchelonGraph cross-links them in the Vendor Advisories panel below — those typically contain the canonical remediation steps, fixed version numbers, and any vendor-specific mitigations.

Dependency Blast Radius

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