CVE-2026-78234
Hawtio-operator: hawtio-operator: service-ca signing oracle allows arbitrary-cn certificate issuance to namespace edit users
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.
INFO
Published Date :
Sept. 8, 2026, 12:16 p.m.
Last Modified :
Sept. 8, 2026, 7:08 p.m.
Remotely Exploit :
Yes !
Source :
[email protected]
Affected Products
The following products are affected by CVE-2026-78234
vulnerability.
Even if cvefeed.io is aware of the exact versions of the
products
that
are
affected, the information is not represented in the table below.
No affected product recoded yet
CVSS Scores
| Score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability Score | Impact Score | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVSS | 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0 | |||||
| CVSS 3.1 | CRITICAL | 53f830b8-0a3f-465b-8143-3b8a9948e749 | ||||
| CVSS 3.1 | CRITICAL | [email protected] |
Solution
- Restrict Hawtio CR edit access.
- Update hawtio-operator to mitigate.
- Review aggregated role permissions.
References to Advisories, Solutions, and Tools
Here, you will find a curated list of external links that provide in-depth
information, practical solutions, and valuable tools related to
CVE-2026-78234.
| URL | Resource |
|---|---|
| https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-78234 | |
| https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2524894 |
CWE - Common Weakness Enumeration
While CVE identifies
specific instances of vulnerabilities, CWE categorizes the common flaws or
weaknesses that can lead to vulnerabilities. CVE-2026-78234 is
associated with the following CWEs:
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification
(CAPEC)
stores attack patterns, which are descriptions of the common attributes and
approaches employed by adversaries to exploit the CVE-2026-78234
weaknesses.
We scan GitHub repositories to detect new proof-of-concept exploits. Following list is a collection of public exploits and proof-of-concepts, which have been published on GitHub (sorted by the most recently updated).
Results are limited to the first 15 repositories due to potential performance issues.
The following list is the news that have been mention
CVE-2026-78234 vulnerability anywhere in the article.
The following table lists the changes that have been made to the
CVE-2026-78234 vulnerability over time.
Vulnerability history details can be useful for understanding the evolution of a vulnerability, and for identifying the most recent changes that may impact the vulnerability's severity, exploitability, or other characteristics.
-
CVE Modified by 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0
Sep. 08, 2026
Action Type Old Value New Value Added SSVC {'id': 'CVE-2026-78234', 'role': 'CISA Coordinator', 'options': [{'exploitation': 'none'}, {'automatable': 'no'}, {'technicalImpact': 'total'}], 'version': '2.0.3', 'timestamp': '2026-09-08T12:18:30.594248Z'} -
New CVE Received by [email protected]
Sep. 08, 2026
Action Type Old Value New Value Added 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. Added CVSS V3.1 AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H Added CWE CWE-295 Added Affected New affected value received. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/78xxx/CVE-2026-78234.json">CVE-2026-78234</a> Added Reference https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-78234 Added Reference https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2524894