CVE-2026-42809
CriticalCVSS 9.9Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk29th percentile - higher than 29% of all known CVEs
Summary
Apache Polaris issues broad temporary (vended) storage credentials during staged table creation before the effective table location has been validated or durably reserved. An attacker can supply a custom location (or write.data.path/write.metadata.path), making the credential scope attacker-directed.
Risk Assessment
An attacker may obtain temporary storage credentials beyond the intended scope, leading to unauthorized access to table data and metadata. Exploitation requires the ability to invoke stage-create with attacker-controlled location parameters.
Recommendation
Upgrade Apache Polaris to a version containing the fix and restrict the ability to supply custom locations in stage-create requests. Consider server-side validation of location and write.data.path/write.metadata.path before credentials are issued.
Other vulnerabilities in Apache Polaris
See all- CVE-2026-42812Critical
Apache Polaris contains a vulnerability allowing a user who can change table settings to bypass storage location validation during metadata writes. Changing only the `write.metadata.path` property via an `ALTER TABLE`-style change skips the commit-time validation branch, potentially causing Polaris to write metadata to an attacker-chosen location and later vend credentials for that location.
- CVE-2026-42811Critical
Apache Polaris issues short-lived GCS credentials with a CEL-based path restriction built without escaping the namespace or table identifier. A crafted identifier containing a single quote and CEL fragments can break out of the quoted string and broaden the credentials to the entire configured bucket. This was confirmed in testing against Polaris 1.4.0 with real Google Cloud Storage.
- CVE-2026-42810Critical
Apache Polaris accepts literal `*` characters in namespace and table names and later reuses them unescaped in S3 IAM resource patterns and `s3:prefix` conditions. Because `*` acts as a wildcard in S3 IAM policy matching, temporary credentials issued for a crafted table (e.g. `f*.t1`, `*.*`) can match the storage path of a different table. Confirmed behavior includes reading another table's Iceberg metadata JSON, listing its exact S3 prefix, and creating or deleting objects under it when write delegation is returned.
- CVE-2026-97395High
Apache Polaris allows an authenticated principal with permission to create or update Iceberg table properties to set FileIO client settings such as s3.endpoint in table metadata. In versions < 1.8.0, Polaris may use these settings to construct its server-side FileIO client, potentially redirecting storage traffic to a host chosen by the table writer and exposing authentication material.
- CVE-2026-64640Medium
Apache Polaris did not consistently validate storage locations supplied during table and view registration. An authenticated principal with registration permissions could cause Polaris to use the catalog's storage credentials to read a caller-selected Iceberg metadata file before verifying it was within allowed locations, potentially disclosing limited information. Polaris could also accept registration metadata with references to external locations, but this did not cause reads.
Original NVD description (English source)
Apache Polaris can issue broad temporary ("vended") storage credentials during staged table creation before the effective table location has been validated or durably reserved. Those temporary credentials are meant to limit the scope of accessible table data and metadata, but this scope limitation becomes attacker- directed because the attacker can choose a reachable target location. In the confirmed variant, if the caller supplies a custom `location` during stage create and requests credential vending, Apache Polaris uses that location to construct delegated storage credentials immediately. The stage-create path itself neither runs the normal location validation nor the overlap checks before those credentials are issued. Closely related to that, the staged-create flow also accepts `write.data.path` / `write.metadata.path` in the request properties and feeds those location overrides into the same effective table location set used for credential vending. Those fields are secondary to the main custom-`location` exploit, but they are still attacker-influenced location inputs that should be validated before any credentials are issued.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS