CVE-2026-97176
Description
A flaw was found in the Level of Authentication enforcement mechanism of Keycloak, an identity and access management solution. The issue occurs when a client specifically requires a higher security level for a user who already has an active session at a lower level. Due to a logic error in how session re-evaluations are handled, Keycloak may incorrectly issue a token at the lower security level instead of enforcing the required higher level, potentially allowing unauthorized access to sensitive resources that rely on these security claims.
Statement
The Red Hat Product Security team has assessed the severity of this vulnerability as Moderate, given that exploitation requires a specific browser flow configuration and an existing active session. Successful exploitation allows an attacker to bypass mandatory step-up authentication requirements and obtain tokens asserting a higher level of authentication than was actually performed. The vulnerability's root cause is a failure to register and execute the forced-level validation callback when all LoA-gated conditional sub-flows are disabled during session re-evaluation.
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 | 4.2 | N/A | 4.2 |
| Attack Vector | Network | N/A | Network |
| Attack Complexity | High | N/A | High |
| Privileges Required | Low | N/A | Low |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | None |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | Low | N/A | Low |
| Integrity Impact | Low | N/A | Low |
| Availability Impact | None | N/A | None |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Read Application Data; Read Files or Directories
An attacker could read sensitive data, either by reading the data directly from a data store that is not restricted, or by accessing insufficiently-protected, privileged functionality to read the data.
Integrity
Technical Impact: Modify Application Data; Modify Files or Directories
An attacker could modify sensitive data, either by writing the data directly to a data store that is not restricted, or by accessing insufficiently-protected, privileged functionality to write the data.
Access Control
Technical Impact: Gain Privileges or Assume Identity; Bypass Protection Mechanism
An attacker could gain privileges by modifying or reading critical data directly, or by accessing privileged functionality.
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Resource Consumption (Other)
An attacker could gain unauthorized access to resources on the system and excessively consume those resources, leading to a denial of service.
Acknowledgements
Red Hat would like to thank Amaury Cormier (GitHub: Mandrak-Kimigo) for reporting this issue.
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