CVE-2026-105312: console-operator: Streams for Apache Kafka Console: tenant-controlled container image on ClusterRole-bound pod enables namespace-to-cluster privilege escalation

Severity: Critical

CVSS Score: 9.9

A Kubernetes tenant with create permission on Console custom resources can set spec.containers.api.spec.image to an arbitrary container image. The operator deploys this image into a pod whose ServiceAccount is bound via ClusterRoleBinding to a ClusterRole granting cluster-wide get/list/watch on all Strimzi CRDs (including KafkaUsers), patch on Kafkas/KafkaRebalances, and cluster-monitoring-view. The attacker's code reads the projected SA token and gains cross-tenant Strimzi control-plane read+write access.