---
id: CVE-2026-122305
title: Kyverno before 1.19.2 Denial of Service via Nested Variable Substitution Loop
summary: >-
  Kyverno before 1.19.2 contains a denial of service vulnerability in
  substituteVariablesIfAny that allows low-privileged users to hang the
  admission webhook via self-referential variable templates. Attackers can
  create resources whose ann…
severity: high
cvss: 7.7
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H'
cvssSource: cna
cwe:
  - CWE-835
vendor: kyverno
product: kyverno
affected:
  - kyverno < 1.19.2
published: '2026-11-05'
updated: '2026-11-05'
sourceUpdated: '2026-11-05T02:25:09.571Z'
source: CVEORG
sourceUrl: 'https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-122305'
references:
  - url: 'https://github.com/kyverno/kyverno/security/advisories/GHSA-338x-hgrv-626h'
    label: GitHub Security Advisory (GHSA-338x-hgrv-626h)
  - url: >-
      https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/kyverno-before-1.19.2-denial-of-service-via-nested-variable-substitution-loop
    label: >-
      VulnCheck Advisory: Kyverno before 1.19.2 Denial of Service via Nested
      Variable Substitution Loop
tags:
  - cve.org
ingestedAt: '2026-11-05T21:36:00.683Z'
epss: 0.00301
epssPercentile: 0.22943
---

## Overview

Kyverno before 1.19.2 contains a denial of service vulnerability in substituteVariablesIfAny that allows low-privileged users to hang the admission webhook via self-referential variable templates. Attackers can create resources whose annotations re-introduce the embedded policy variable, causing unbounded substitution loops that exhaust CPU and memory and block cluster-wide admission.

## Affected

- `kyverno < 1.19.2`

## Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.