Hawtio-operator: hawtio-operator: service-ca signing oracle allows arbitrary-cn certificate issuance to namespace edit users
Summary
| CVE | CVE-2026-78234 |
|---|---|
| State | PUBLISHED |
| Assigner | redhat |
| Source Priority | CVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback |
| Published | 2026-09-08 12:16:59 UTC |
| Updated | 2026-09-08 19:08:15 UTC |
| Description | A flaw was found in hawtio-operator. The operator reads the OpenShift Service CA private signing key from the openshift-service-ca namespace and uses it to mint client certificates with a Subject Common Name (CN) supplied by the author of a namespaced Hawtio custom resource. Because the operator ships a ClusterRole that aggregates Hawtio CR permissions into the edit and admin roles, any user with edit access in any namespace can obtain a Service-CA-signed certificate with an arbitrary subject. This certificate can be used to impersonate any in-cluster service identity to peers that trust the Service CA for client authentication, including Jolokia agents and other Service-CA-trusting components. |
Risk And Classification
Primary CVSS: v3.1 9.9 CRITICAL from [email protected]
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Problem Types: CWE-295 | CWE-295 Improper Certificate Validation
| Version | Source | Type | Score | Severity | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | [email protected] | Secondary | 9.9 | CRITICAL | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H |
| 3.1 | CNA | CVSS | 9.9 | CRITICAL | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H |
CVSS v3.1 Breakdown
Attack Vector
NetworkAttack Complexity
LowPrivileges Required
LowUser Interaction
NoneScope
ChangedConfidentiality
HighIntegrity
HighAvailability
HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Vendor Declared Affected Products
| Source | Vendor | Product | Version | Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CNA | Red Hat | Red Hat Build Of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4 | Not specified | Not specified |
| CNA | Red Hat | Red Hat Build Of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4 | Not specified | Not specified |
| CNA | Red Hat | Red Hat Build Of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4 | Not specified | Not specified |
References
| Reference | Source | Link | Tags |
|---|---|---|---|
| bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi | [email protected] | bugzilla.redhat.com | |
| access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-78234 | [email protected] | access.redhat.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.
Additional Advisory Data
| Source | Time | Event |
|---|---|---|
| CNA | 2026-05-20T00:00:00.000Z | Reported to Red Hat. |
| CNA | 2026-09-08T10:55:10.366Z | Made public. |
Workarounds
CNA: Do not set spec.routeHostName to values outside the operator's own namespace service names. Restrict which users can create or modify Hawtio custom resources via RBAC. Audit existing Hawtio CR instances for unexpected routeHostName values and rotate any TLS certificates that may have been issued with incorrect Common Names.
There are currently no legacy QID mappings associated with this CVE.