CVE-2026-15572
Description
A flaw was found in Keycloak's Dynamic Client Registration (DCR) security policy management. The "Allowed Protocol Mapper Types" policy, which restricts which types of data mappers a client can use, fails to re-validate the mapper type during a client update if the mapper's configuration remains unchanged. An attacker with client registration privileges can exploit this by first registering an allowed mapper type with a malicious configuration and then swapping it for a restricted, high-privilege mapper type (such as one that hardcodes administrative roles). This allows the attacker to gain full administrative access to the Keycloak realm.
Statement
The Red Hat Product Security team has assessed the severity of this vulnerability as Important. Successful exploitation allows an attacker with client registration privileges to escalate to realm administrator, granting them full control over the affected realm. This includes the ability to modify security settings, access sensitive user data, or cause a denial of service. The vulnerability stems from an asymmetric enforcement of the protocol mapper allow-list during client updates, where the system fails to re-validate the mapper type if the configuration remains unchanged.
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 | 8.8 | N/A | 8.8 |
| Attack Vector | Network | N/A | Network |
| Attack Complexity | Low | N/A | Low |
| Privileges Required | Low | N/A | Low |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | None |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | High | N/A | High |
| Integrity Impact | High | N/A | High |
| Availability Impact | High | N/A | High |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability,Integrity,Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Read Memory; Modify Memory; Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands; DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
When a memory buffer is accessed using the wrong type, it could read or write memory out of the bounds of the buffer, if the allocated buffer is smaller than the type that the code is attempting to access, leading to a crash and possibly code execution.
Acknowledgements
Red Hat would like to thank Arthur Chan (Ada Logics) for reporting this issue.
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