Unauthenticated Denial-of-Service via TLS SAN Stuffing in Rancher and cattle-cluster-agent
Summary
| CVE | CVE-2026-55996 |
|---|---|
| State | PUBLISHED |
| Assigner | suse |
| Source Priority | CVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback |
| Published | 2026-08-05 08:16:34 UTC |
| Updated | 2026-08-05 20:17:11 UTC |
| Description | A denial-of-service vulnerability was identified in multiple TLS listeners in Rancher. Both the cattle-cluster-agent component running in downstream clusters and the Rancher server itself use the dynamiclistener library to serve TLS traffic. Without an effective CN filter configured, dynamiclistener automatically appended to each serving certificate any hostname presented via Server Name Indication (SNI) in incoming TLS requests. An unauthenticated attacker with network access within the affected cluster could send a large number of TLS requests with distinct hostnames, causing the serving certificate to accumulate an unbounded number of Subject Alternative Names (SANs). Eventually, the certificate grows large enough that TLS handshakes fail with an excessive message size error, causing a denial of service on the affected listeners. |
Risk And Classification
Primary CVSS: v3.1 4.3 MEDIUM from [email protected]
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
EPSS: 0.001500000 probability, percentile 0.047130000 (date 2026-08-05)
Problem Types: CWE-770 | CWE-770 CWE-770 Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
| Version | Source | Type | Score | Severity | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | [email protected] | Secondary | 4.3 | MEDIUM | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L |
| 3.1 | CNA | CVSS | 4.3 | MEDIUM | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L |
CVSS v3.1 Breakdown
Attack Vector
NetworkAttack Complexity
LowPrivileges Required
LowUser Interaction
NoneScope
UnchangedConfidentiality
NoneIntegrity
NoneAvailability
LowCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Vendor Declared Affected Products
References
| Reference | Source | Link | Tags |
|---|---|---|---|
| bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi | [email protected] | bugzilla.suse.com | |
| github.com/rancher/rancher/security/advisories/GHSA-9jxv-832x-45q9 | [email protected] | github.com | |
| CVE Program record | CVE.ORG | www.cve.org | canonical |
| NVD vulnerability detail | NVD | nvd.nist.gov | canonical, analysis |
No vendor comments have been submitted for this CVE.
There are currently no legacy QID mappings associated with this CVE.