CVE-2026-16106
Description
A flaw was found in the admin REST API of Keycloak, a solution for identity and access management. The issue occurs when a delegated administrator attempts to remove a child role from a composite role. Due to missing authorization checks, an attacker with limited administrative permissions can remove privileged roles they are not authorized to manage, leading to a loss of access for other users and administrators.
Statement
The Red Hat Product Security team has assessed the severity of this vulnerability as Moderate, given that exploitation requires the attacker to already possess high-level delegated administrative privileges. Successful exploitation allows an attacker to remove privileged child roles from composites, leading to the unauthorized removal of administrative or functional roles from other users. The vulnerability's root cause is a missing per-child authorization check in the role-composite deletion REST API endpoints.
Mitigation
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.
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 | 4.9 | N/A | 4.9 |
| Attack Vector | Network | N/A | Network |
| Attack Complexity | Low | N/A | Low |
| Privileges Required | High | N/A | High |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | None |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | None | N/A | None |
| Integrity Impact | High | N/A | High |
| Availability Impact | None | N/A | None |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
Acknowledgements
Red Hat would like to thank Owais Lone (thesecguy) (Independent Security Researcher) for reporting this issue.
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