CVE-2026-116580
Description
A flaw was found in seroval. During deserialization, the process of converting serialized data back into live objects, the library fails to properly validate internal stream sources. A remote attacker can exploit this issue by supplying crafted input that reuses object identifiers, causing the deserializer to invoke unintended functions exposed by application plugins. Depending on the functionality provided by the application plugin, this can lead to unauthorized data disclosure, data modification, or a Denial of Service (DoS).
Statement
This vulnerability is rated as Important severity because it enables unauthenticated network attackers to invoke arbitrary application-level callback methods without requiring special privileges. In Red Hat environments such as the Automation Orchestrator web interface, Seroval operates as an internal serialization utility, where exposure requires an endpoint to ingest untrusted serialized structures alongside plugins that register callable objects. The scope of impact is governed by the specific actions performed by those registered plugins, which may result in data modification, information disclosure, or service interruption.
Mitigation
--- CME Mitigation Guidance (2026-11-02) ---
Disclaimer: The following mitigation solutions are provided as a courtesy, pending the application of an official patch. This content was generated utilizing AI tools in conjunction with data from https://cmetaxonomy.org. Customers are advised to independently evaluate and test these temporary mitigations within their own infrastructure.
The highest-value action is to validate deserialized stream sources directly at the fromJSON deserialization boundary rather than trusting recorded node identifiers: upgrade to seroval 1.6.8 (or the fixed Ansible Automation Platform/Automation Orchestrator Ui Rhel/Forgejo builds), which validate deserialized source objects directly using runtime isSequence and isStream checks rather than trusting recorded node IDs, throwing SerovalMalformedNodeError if validation fails, closing all 2 injection vectors (crafted serialized payload reusing unrecorded node IDs, forged stream or sequence node identifiers). Until patched, this is a concern on applications accepting untrusted Seroval serialized data via fromJSON with plugins returning callables or objects with an on method, so avoid registering Seroval plugins whose deserialize functions return callables or objects with an on method when processing untrusted input. As a compensating measure, enforce strict positive schema validation on incoming serialized structures to reject unexpected node IDs and malformed object graphs. These controls limit blast radius and contain exploitation, but they do not fix the underlying insecure deserialization defect — apply the upstream patch to fully remediate.
Highest-impact CME: CME-1302 Deserialization Allowlist (Safe Loading) (high)
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).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 7.3 | N/A | 7.3 |
| Attack Vector | Network | N/A | Network |
| Attack Complexity | Low | N/A | Low |
| Privileges Required | None | N/A | None |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | None |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | Low | N/A | Low |
| Integrity Impact | Low | N/A | Low |
| Availability Impact | Low | N/A | Low |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L
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