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KargoApplication · Akuity

CVE-2026-27111

MEDIUM · 5.0 CVSS v3.1 Published 2026-02-20
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 1.9.3 or later.
See remediation →
56/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Kargo manages and automates the promotion of software artifacts. From v1.9.0 to v1.9.2, Kargo's authorization model includes a promote verb -- a non-standard Kubernetes "dolphin verb" -- that gates the ability to advance Freight through a promotion pipeline. This verb exists to separate the ability to manage promotion-related resources from the ability to trigger promotions, enabling fine-grained access control over what is often a sensitive operation. The promote verb is correctly enforced in Kargo's legacy gRPC API. However, three endpoints in the newer REST API omit this check, relying only on standard Kubernetes RBAC for the underlying resource operations (patch on freights/status or create on promotions). This permits users who hold those standard permissions -- but who were deliberately not granted promote -- to bypass the intended authorization boundary. The affected endpoints are /v1beta1/projects/{project}/freight/{freight}/approve, /v1beta1/projects/{project}/stages/{stage}/promotions, and /v1beta1/projects/{project}/stages/{stage}/promotions/downstream. This vulnerability is fixed in v1.9.3.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-862

The application checks who you are but not whether you're allowed to perform a given action, so any authenticated user can reach things meant for others. This is the classic “change the ID in the URL” bug. The fix is an authorization check on every request, evaluated against the acting user's permissions.

General guidance for the missing authorization class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
KargoApplication
Affected:>= 1.9.0, < 1.9.3

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

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

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 1.9.3 or later
Fixed in 1.9.3
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

v1.9.3

  1. 1. Identify current Kargo version running in the cluster (e.g., kubectl get deployment -n kargo kargo -o jsonpath='{.spec.template.spec.containers[0].image}')
  2. 2. Confirm the version is >= 1.9.0 and < 1.9.3 (vulnerable range)
  3. 3. Create a backup of existing Kargo custom resources (Freight, Stages, Promotions) and cluster state before upgrading
  4. 4. Test the upgrade in a staging or non-production environment first
  5. 5. Upgrade Kargo to version v1.9.3 (using the same deployment method originally used - Helm, kubectl, or other)
  6. 6. Verify the upgrade was successful by checking the Kargo controller pods are running
  7. 7. Test that the three affected endpoints now correctly enforce the promote verb authorization
  8. 8. Apply to production environment after successful validation

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $1,600. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2026-27111 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data