CVE-2026-72508
Description
A flaw was found in the multicloud-operators-subscription component of Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management (RHACM). This vulnerability allows a namespace-admin tenant to perform a confused-deputy attack by creating Subscription Custom Resources (CRs) that leverage a highly privileged ServiceAccount (SA). This enables the tenant to deploy arbitrary cluster-scoped resources, leading to privilege escalation and potential arbitrary code execution across the cluster.
Statement
This Critical flaw in Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management's multicloud-operators-subscription component allows a namespace administrator on a managed cluster to escalate privileges. The application-manager addon's ServiceAccount is granted broad wildcard permissions by default, enabling a malicious tenant to deploy arbitrary cluster-scoped resources. This significantly increases the blast radius beyond typical namespace boundaries.
Mitigation
To mitigate this issue, Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes administrators should configure the application-manager addon to use the least-privilege RBAC variant. This involves applying the addon/manifests/permission/role.yaml configuration, which restricts the permissions granted to the application-manager ServiceAccount. Consult Red Hat documentation for specific instructions on how to apply custom RBAC configurations for RHACM addons. Applying this change may require a restart or reload of the affected components to take effect.
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 | 9.9 | N/A | 9.9 |
| 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 | 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:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Confidentiality,Integrity,Availability,Access Control
Technical Impact: Gain Privileges or Assume Identity; Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands; Read Application Data; DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
An attacker will be able to gain access to any resources that are allowed by the extra privileges. Common results include executing code, disabling services, and reading restricted data. New weaknesses can be exposed because running with extra privileges, such as root or Administrator, can disable the normal security checks being performed by the operating system or surrounding environment. Other pre-existing weaknesses can turn into security vulnerabilities if they occur while operating at raised privileges.
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