CVE-2026-44477CWE-250CWE-271CWE-426

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

Critical · published May 28, 2026

CVSS v4.0
9.4
EPSS
0%
Percentile
39.7
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

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.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v4.0
9.4 · CRITICAL
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
EPSS
0.00480 · 39.7th percentile
Weaknesses
CWE-250 · Execution with Unnecessary Privileges; CWE-271 · Privilege Dropping / Lowering Errors; CWE-426 · Untrusted Search Path
Published
2026-05-28T15:46Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 28 MAY 15:46Z
    CloudNativePG: Metrics exporter allows privilege escalation to PostgreSQL superuser and OS RCE
    cvelistv5