Grafana Operator <=5.23 Path Traversal PrivEsc via Jsonnet 5.24.0 Fixed
CVE-2026-11769 Published on June 13, 2026
Operator - Namespaced User Path Traversal
We have released version 5.24.0 of the Grafana Operator. This patch includes a CRITICAL severity security fix for a path traversal/privilege escalation vulnerability in the Grafana Operator.
### Summary
The Grafana Operator supports loading dashboards & library panels using the jsonnet data templating language. The jsonnet expression is evaluated in the context of the operator manager pod.
### Impact
It is possible for a malicious user who can create Dashboard or LibraryPanel resources for a Grafana instance to obtain the Kubernetes service account token of the Grafana Operator manager.
### Affected versions
All Grafana Operator versions <= 5.23
### Solutions and mitigations
All installations should be upgraded as soon as possible.
As a workaround, the following ValidatingAdmissionPolicy prevent the creation or modification of jsonnet based resources:
apiVersion: admissionregistration.k8s.io/v1
kind: ValidatingAdmissionPolicy
metadata:
name: "prevent-jsonnet-dashboards"
spec:
failurePolicy: Fail
matchConstraints:
resourceRules:
- apiGroups: ["grafana.integreatly.org"]
apiVersions: ["v1beta1"]
operations: ["CREATE", "UPDATE"]
resources: ["grafanadashboards", "grafanalibrarypanels"]
validations:
- expression: "!has(object.spec.jsonnetLib)"
---
apiVersion: admissionregistration.k8s.io/v1
kind: ValidatingAdmissionPolicyBinding
metadata:
name: "prevent-jsonnet-dashboards-clusterwide"
spec:
policyName: "prevent-jsonnet-dashboards"
validationActions: [Deny]
### Acknowledgement
We would like to thank Artem Cherezov for responsibly disclosing the vulnerability.
Weakness Type
What is a Directory traversal Vulnerability?
The software uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the software does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory.
CVE-2026-11769 has been classified to as a Directory traversal vulnerability or weakness.
Products Associated with CVE-2026-11769
Want to know whenever a new CVE is published for Grafana Labs Grafana? stack.watch will email you.
Affected Versions
Grafana Operator:- Before and including 5.23.0 is affected.
Exploit Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) scores estimate the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. The percentile shows you how this score compares to all other vulnerabilities.