CVE-2026-18544
Auth bypass in IBM Portieris lets pods evade image policy enforcement.
Is CVE-2026-18544 being exploited?
Not confirmed. CVE-2026-18544 does not appear in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, which records only exploitation that has been observed and reported publicly. That is evidence of absence of a report, not evidence the flaw is unattacked. EPSS currently estimates a 0.33% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.
How severe is CVE-2026-18544?
CVE-2026-18544 is rated High with a CVSS score of 8.1. Severity describes how bad exploitation would be, not how likely it is: pair it with exploitation evidence before deciding what to patch first.
Is there a patch for CVE-2026-18544?
Yes. A fix has been recorded for CVE-2026-18544. The vendor advisory is the authority on the exact fixed version — apply it from there rather than from a summary.
What does CVE-2026-18544 affect?
CVE-2026-18544 affects IBM Portieris 0.5.0-0.14.2, Kubernetes clusters using the Portieris admission controller. Confirm the exact affected versions against the vendor advisory before deciding you are exposed.
What should I do about CVE-2026-18544?
Upgrade Portieris to a patched release when available; enforce RBAC and registry allowlists.
Exploitation status reflects CISA's KEV catalog as we last synced it. Check the catalog directly.
Authenticated attacker can bypass image policy enforcement to deploy untrusted images, enabling malicious containers, supply-chain compromise, or RCE.
Patch when possible
- affected>= 0.5.0 and <= 0.14.2
As published in the CVE Program record. A version outside these ranges is not a statement that it is unaffected — vendors sometimes understate a range, and distribution-backported builds carry upstream numbers that do not reflect what was patched into them.