CVE-2026-84644
Description
A flaw was found in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform's automation- controller. The Thycotic Secret Server external credential plugin passes a user-supplied server URL to its SDK without validating the scheme, host, or IP range, and the plugin backend is executed synchronously within the automation controller web process. Using the external credential test endpoint, a user who holds only the use role on such a credential can override the stored server URL with an arbitrary internal address, causing the control plane to issue requests to internal services. Although the response is a generic error, response timing reveals whether internal hosts and ports are reachable, enabling internal network reconnaissance and a blind request-forgery primitive from the control plane, and each request can hold a web worker, affecting availability.
Statement
This flaw affects automation-controller as shipped in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. Exploitation requires an authenticated user with the use role on a Thycotic Secret Server credential (or the ability to create one); the impact is a blind server-side request forgery originating from the control-plane web pod, enabling internal reconnaissance and a limited request-forgery/denial- of-service primitive
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 | 7.4 | N/A | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Network | N/A | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | Low | N/A | N/A |
| Privileges Required | Low | N/A | N/A |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | N/A |
| Scope | Changed | N/A | N/A |
| Confidentiality | Low | N/A | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | Low | N/A | N/A |
| Availability Impact | Low | N/A | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:L
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Read Application Data
Integrity
Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands
Access Control
Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism
By providing URLs to unexpected hosts or ports, attackers can make it appear that the server is sending the request, possibly bypassing access controls such as firewalls that prevent the attackers from accessing the URLs directly. The server can be used as a proxy to conduct port scanning of hosts in internal networks, use other URLs such as that can access documents on the system (using file://), or use other protocols such as gopher:// or tftp://, which may provide greater control over the contents of requests.
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