CVE-2026-9165
Description
A flaw was found in Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes (RHACS). Central does not limit the depth of GraphQL queries served on the authenticated GraphQL API. An authenticated user with a valid API token can send deeply nested queries that cause excessive resource consumption in Central, resulting in a denial of service for the management plane.
Statement
Red Hat Product Security is aware of this issue affecting RHACS Central. This flaw allows an authenticated user to reduce availability of the Central management component. Red Hat is not aware of malicious exploitation of this issue outside of coordinated testing. Updates addressing this issue will be released according to the RHACS support lifecycle. Refer to the associated errata when available for affected versions and update instructions.
Mitigation
There is no complete mitigation other than installing the update once
available.
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 | 7.7 | N/A | 7.7 |
| 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 | Changed | N/A | Changed |
| Confidentiality | None | N/A | None |
| Integrity Impact | None | N/A | None |
| Availability Impact | High | N/A | High |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Resource Consumption (Other)
If an attacker can trigger the allocation of the limited resources, but the number or size of the resources is not controlled, then the most common result is denial of service. This would prevent valid users from accessing the product, and it could potentially have an impact on the surrounding environment, i.e., the product may slow down, crash due to unhandled errors, or lock out legitimate users. For example, a memory exhaustion attack against an application could slow down the application as well as its host operating system.
Access Control,Other
Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism; Other
In some cases it may be possible to force the product to "fail open" in the event of resource exhaustion. The state of the product -- and possibly the security functionality - may then be compromised.
Acknowledgements
This issue was discovered by Moritz Clasmeier (Red Hat).
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