CVE-2025-5988
Description
A flaw was found in the Ansible aap-gateway. Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) origin checking is not done on requests from the gateway to external components, such as the controller, hub, and eda.
Statement
This issue is classified as Moderate because the exploitation conditions significantly limit its practicality and impact in typical deployments. Successful exploitation requires the attacker to first obtain a valid CSRF form token tied to the victim’s session, which is generally protected by browser same-origin policies and modern CSRF mitigations—making token theft non-trivial without an existing compromise or major misconfiguration. Additionally, the gateway is still performing Referer checks when TLS edge termination is in place, which, while not as strict as Origin validation, reduces exposure in many real-world setups. The need for a valid authenticated session and precise token alignment means the attacker cannot simply trick a user into visiting a malicious site and execute arbitrary state-changing requests; they must overcome multiple layered controls.
Mitigation
Use HTTPS on the platform ingress if possible.
Since this is a problem in edge-terminated AAP deployments where requests have TLS terminated right before the platform ingress, enforce trusted origins before requests reach the gateway.
A tool such as a Web-application firewall should be able to manage this issue.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 5.3 | N/A | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Network | N/A | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | High | N/A | N/A |
| Privileges Required | Low | N/A | N/A |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | N/A |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | N/A |
| Confidentiality | High | N/A | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | None | N/A | N/A |
| Availability Impact | None | N/A | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Confidentiality,Integrity,Availability,Non-Repudiation,Access Control
Technical Impact: Gain Privileges or Assume Identity; Bypass Protection Mechanism; Read Application Data; Modify Application Data; DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
The consequences will vary depending on the nature of the functionality that is vulnerable to CSRF. An attacker could trick a client into making an unintentional request to the web server via a URL, image load, XMLHttpRequest, etc., which would then be treated as an authentic request from the client - effectively performing any operations as the victim, leading to an exposure of data, unintended code execution, etc. If the victim is an administrator or privileged user, the consequences may include obtaining complete control over the web application - deleting or stealing data, uninstalling the product, or using it to launch other attacks against all of the product's users. Because the attacker has the identity of the victim, the scope of CSRF is limited only by the victim's privileges.
Acknowledgements
This issue was discovered by Brennan Paciorek (Red Hat Inc.), Chris Meyers (Red Hat Inc.), Hao Liu (Red Hat Inc.), and Julen Landa Alustiza (Red Hat Inc.).
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