CVE-2026-102340: Telepresence: Traffic Manager gRPC has no auth — any pod claims arbitrary namespace and intercepts services, receiving victim environment secrets
Telepresence enables local development against a remote Kubernetes or OpenShift cluster. Prior to 2.31.0, the Traffic Manager gRPC API on port 8081 accepts unauthenticated cluster-network callers, ArriveAsClient stores a caller-supplied Namespace using only the ManagesNamespace manager watchlist check, and CreateIntercept can target any managed namespace without checking the session's Kubernetes RBAC. An attacker operating any pod with network access to the manager can register in an arbitrary managed namespace, create service intercepts, receive intercepted traffic, and obtain the victim pod's complete container environment, including secrets, tokens, and API keys. The default cluster-wide deployment manages all namespaces. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.31.0.
Remediation
Recommended actions to resolve this vulnerability, in priority order.
- Upgrade
Upgrade
Telepresence Traffic Managerto a version that resolves this vulnerability.Fixed in 2.31.0
Event History
Frequently Asked Questions
Which deployments are exposed by default?
Telepresence deployments prior to 2.31.0 are affected when the Traffic Manager is reachable from cluster-network callers. The default cluster-wide deployment manages all namespaces, so any namespace is in scope by default.
What access does an attacker need to exploit this?
An attacker needs to operate a pod that has network access to the Traffic Manager gRPC API on port 8081. They do not need Kubernetes RBAC in the namespace they target, and no user interaction is required.
What can an attacker obtain or change?
The attacker can register as a client for an arbitrary namespace managed by the Traffic Manager and create service intercepts there. Intercepted traffic is delivered to the attacker, along with the victim pod's complete container environment, which can include secrets, tokens, and API keys.
What should be done if immediate upgrading is not possible?
Limit which pods can reach the Traffic Manager gRPC service on port 8081 and restrict the manager watchlist to only namespaces that must be managed. This reduces the set of potential callers and target namespaces until upgrading to 2.31.0.