BlackTreeCVE Intelligence
← Back to the CVE catalogue
Full vulnerability report · 2026
CVE-2026-78234High confidence

Hawtio-operator: hawtio-operator: service-ca signing oracle allows arbitrary-cn certificate issuance to namespace edit users

Red Hat · Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4

9.9CriticalCVSS 3.1
Recommended action
Within 7 days

Critical technical severity; prioritise exposed affected systems while verifying vendor guidance.

Patch available
R
Operational reassessment

Published severity in operational context

Open reassessment dashboard →
Published severityCriticalOperational priority:Critical, unchanged from published severity.unchanged

Evidence used

  • No CISA KEV confirmation is currently recorded.
  • EPSS is 0.39% for the current model date.

Compensating controls

  • Validate the affected product branch and deploy the verified fixed release.
  • Restrict the affected network interface to trusted sources where business-safe.
  • Monitor vendor guidance and exploitation sources for a material change.

Verification

  1. Confirm that the asset runs Red Hat Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4 and falls inside the recorded affected range.
  2. Verify the installed build against the product-specific fixed version after deployment.
  3. Validate exposure, authentication requirements and compensating controls in the actual environment.
  4. Reopen this reassessment when CVSS, KEV, EPSS, exploit evidence or remediation changes.
Mitigation target: Within 3 daysRemediation target: Within 90 days

This automated reassessment organises public evidence. It does not know asset exposure, business impact or control effectiveness and does not replace CVSS or a human risk decision.

Direct vendor intelligence

Authoritative vendor CSAF and VEX advisories

Structured product status and remediation from the issuing vendor. Product-state explanations are always visible; large lists can be searched or downloaded.

1 current
CVE-2026-78234 · CSAF 2.0 · revision 3 · finalRed Hat Product Securityhawtio-operator: hawtio-operator: Service-CA signing oracle allows arbitrary-CN certificate issuance to namespace edit users
2 known affected

The vendor explicitly identifies these products as affected by this CVE.

  • rhbac-4/hawtio-operator-bundle as a component of Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4
  • rhbac-4/hawtio-rhel9 as a component of Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4
Summary
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.
Remediation
The container images provided by this update can be downloaded from the Red Hat Container Registry at registry.access.redhat.com. Installation instructions for your platform are available at Red Hat Container Catalog (see References). Dockerfiles and scripts should be amended either to refer to this new image specifically, or to the latest image generally.
Optional official sources

National CERT insights
?CERT means Computer Emergency Response Team; CSIRT is the closely related term Computer Security Incident Response Team.

Choose official national sources for this report. Each advisory shows its original language. Your selection is remembered on this device and included in shared links.

Official European source

ENISA European Vulnerability Database

Official EUVD identifiers, advisory evidence and known-exploited context. Missing fields are not treated as evidence of low risk.

1 current
ENISA EUVD identifier

EUVD-2026-72693

No EUVD known-exploited evidence

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.

EUVD state
Present in the current official mapping
Known exploitation
Not present in the current ENISA EUVD known-exploited dataset. This is not proof of no exploitation.
ENISA score
9.9 · CVSS 3.1
Advisory evidence
No linked advisory details stored yet
Recommended actionWithin 7 days

Critical technical severity; prioritise exposed affected systems while verifying vendor guidance.

Patch available
01

What, why and how

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.

What

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.

Why

The product does not validate, or incorrectly validates, a certificate.

How

An attacker operating through a network path may attempt exploitation with low privileges. If successful, the issue may cause the confidentiality, integrity or availability impact described by the vendor.

What

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.

Why

The product does not validate, or incorrectly validates, a certificate.

How

An attacker operating through a network path may attempt exploitation with low privileges. If successful, the issue may cause the confidentiality, integrity or availability impact described by the vendor.

02

Exploit reality and attack path

CVSS severity, EPSS forecast probability, public exploit material and CISA-confirmed exploitation are separate signals.

Observed exploitation
?Confirmed exploitation and public exploit material are separate signals. Attacks can occur without public proof-of-concept or exploit code.
No confirmed evidence

No CISA KEV match was present at the last successful refresh. This means no confirmation from that source, not proof of no exploitation.

Public PoC / exploit material
?Confirmed exploitation and public exploit material are separate signals. Attacks can occur without public proof-of-concept or exploit code.
None recorded

No exploit-tagged reference or CISA SSVC proof-of-concept state is currently recorded. Research may still exist outside the structured feeds.

Likely attack path
a network path → Improper Certificate Validation → cause the confidentiality, integrity or availability impact described by the vendor
Attack surface
Network
Privileges required
Low: a basic authenticated account is required
User interaction
None
Attack complexity
Low: no specialised conditions are recorded
Security boundary
Changed: exploitation can affect a different security authority
Weakness
?CWE means Common Weakness Enumeration: a standard category for the underlying weakness.
CWE-295 ↗

CWE-295: Improper Certificate Validation. The product does not validate, or incorrectly validates, a certificate.

CVSS vector
?CVSS means Common Vulnerability Scoring System. The vector records the metric values used to calculate technical severity.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Common Vulnerability Scoring System 3.1: the compact vector below is decoded into plain language.

AVNetworkAttack vector: The vulnerable component can be reached over a network.ACLowAttack complexity: No specialised conditions are required beyond attacker-controlled input.PRLowPrivileges required: The attacker needs basic user-level privileges.UINoneUser interaction: No action by another user is required.SChangedScope: The attack can affect a component governed by a different security authority.CHighConfidentiality impact: A successful attack can cause a major loss.IHighIntegrity impact: A successful attack can cause a major loss.AHighAvailability impact: A successful attack can cause a major loss.
Post-exploitation / living off the land
No specific living-off-the-land technique is confirmed in the structured sources. Monitor normal administration tools for activity inconsistent with the affected service's baseline.
NetworkCWE-295
A

Official authority intelligence

Only matched European and national findings are included. Language selectors and unavailable sources are omitted.

ENISA EUVD · EUVD-2026-72693Official EUVD mapping

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.

Official EUVD record ↗
Cyber Security Agency of Singapore · English · CSA-SB-20260909Security Bulletin 9 Sep 2026

The Cyber Security Agency of Singapore included this CVE in its official Security Bulletin 9 Sep 2026, published on 9 September 2026. Open the linked bulletin for the product, severity and reference information published in that issue.

Official advisory ↗
03

Patch and workaround

Operational remediation based on structured source evidence.

Status
?Patch availability is based on structured fixed-version fields and authoritative update references. If no fix is verified, check the vendor advisory before making a change.
Patch available
Affected
Fixed
Action
The container images provided by this update can be downloaded from the Red Hat Container Registry at registry.access.redhat.com. Installation instructions for your platform are available at Red Hat Container Catalog (see References). Dockerfiles and scripts should be amended either to refer to this new image specifically, or to the latest image generally.
Workaround
No verified workaround is recorded. If business-safe, reduce exposure to the affected interface and allow only trusted sources until authoritative guidance is available.
04

Evidence and provenance

Published 8 Sept 2026 · Last source change 8 Sept 2026, 17:14 UTC · CWE-295 · Improper Certificate Validation

CVE recordCVE.org · 5.2
CVSS sourceCNA
EPSS source
?The date BlackTree first stored a score for this CVE from the daily FIRST EPSS feed.
FIRST · tracked since 2026-09-09
European sourceENISA EUVD · EUVD-2026-72693
Product sourceVendor CSAF · Red Hat Product Security
Remediation sourceVendor CSAF · Red Hat Product Security
CWE sourceCNA
NVD statusNVD awaiting enrichment

Core structured fields are present and their contributing authorities are shown above.

Material change intelligence

What changed after publication

View recent updates ↗
  1. Affected versionsThe structured affected or fixed version information changed.
    Before
    See the vendor and CVE records for the affected range. · Fixed: No fixed version is explicitly recorded in the structured CVE data.
    After
    See the vendor and CVE records for the affected range. · Fixed: The container images provided by this update can be downloaded from the Red Hat Container Registry at registry.access.redhat.com. Installation instructions for your platform are available at Red Hat Container Catalog (see References). Dockerfiles and scripts should be amended either to refer to this new image specifically, or to the latest image generally.
    Red Hat Product Security ↗
  2. Remediation statusRemediation status changed from Awaiting fix to Patch available.
    Before
    Awaiting fix
    After
    Patch available
    Red Hat Product Security ↗
  3. Vendor guidanceAuthoritative vendor guidance changed from remediation: access.redhat.com/CVE-2026-78234 to remediation: access.redhat.com/CVE-2026-78234.
    Before
    remediation: access.redhat.com/CVE-2026-78234
    After
    remediation: access.redhat.com/CVE-2026-78234
    Red Hat Product Security ↗
  4. Remediation statusRemediation status changed from Mitigation available to Patch available.
    Before
    Mitigation available
    After
    Patch available
    Red Hat Product Security ↗
  5. Affected versionsThe structured affected or fixed version information changed.
    Before
    rhbac-4/hawtio-gateway-rhel9 as a component of Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4; rhbac-4/hawtio-operator-bundle as a component of Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4; rhbac-4/hawtio-rhel9 as a component of Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4
    After
    rhbac-4/hawtio-operator-bundle as a component of Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4; rhbac-4/hawtio-rhel9 as a component of Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4 · Fixed: rhbac-4/hawtio-operator-bundle@sha256:1d8ea1649ed820b4ccd88642da2d4893d235304bf555420c4cdac8f14143c250_arm64 as a component of Red Hat Build of Apache Camel HawtIO 4.4 for RHEL 9; rhbac-4/hawtio-operator-bundle@sha256:23dc542eed8e63eac9a44e3da09e94a6dd66b0525f5f4f43917c34ce528ad2ba_s390x as a component of Red Hat Build of Apache Camel HawtIO 4.4 for RHEL 9; rhbac-4/hawtio-operator-bundle@sha256:26ab39aa76637e98dd8a00bae0ca698abea3feccab48879f20f124bb4ce7cf69_amd64 as a component of Red Hat Build of Apache Camel HawtIO 4.4 for RHEL 9; rhbac-4/hawtio-operator-bundle@sha256:f36c63ce007002ef2d2f6fa4e0afeeab50d4b7ad4db3aec8646d1e0423c0411b_ppc64le as a component of Red Hat Build of Apache Camel HawtIO 4.4 for RHEL 9; rhbac-4/hawtio-rhel9-operator@sha256:2370ba6b422e78f8154d299e907eeb1991ffd18dcb2e0f8959293b6adf072d58_s390x as a component of Red Hat Build of Apache Camel HawtIO 4.4 for RHEL 9; rhbac-4/hawtio-rhel9-operator@sha256:5b0bbdfecc9abb44d9f61d37ace8589effbb3d941d552741900c7e0049459ec7_amd64 as a component of Red Hat Build of Apache Camel HawtIO 4.4 for RHEL 9; rhbac-4/hawtio-rhel9-operator@sha256:a44b50036d31bb34c2a8903a3aeb0db495bc0a4832103fb8bd7306fc1318ffa4_ppc64le as a component of Red Hat Build of Apache Camel HawtIO 4.4 for RHEL 9
    Red Hat Product Security ↗
  6. ENISA EUVD mappingEUVD-2026-72693 was added to the official ENISA EUVD mapping for this CVE.
    Before
    not recorded
    After
    {"euvdId":"EUVD-2026-72693"}
    ENISA EUVD ↗
  7. Catalogue recordCVE added to the BlackTree catalogue.
    CNA ↗
Material fields only · duplicate refreshes suppressed · history retained for the configured operational retention period
CVE published
Fixed release recorded from official guidance
ENISA EUVD · EUVD-2026-72693↗CVE authority or vendor reference↗Official CVE record (CNA and ADP data)↗NVD record↗
Technical terms and abbreviations used in this report
CVE
Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures: the public identifier for one disclosed vulnerability.
CVSS
Common Vulnerability Scoring System: a technical severity framework; it is not patching priority by itself.
EPSS
Exploit Prediction Scoring System: FIRST's estimate of the probability that exploitation activity will be observed in the next 30 days; it is a forecast, not confirmation.
CWE
Common Weakness Enumeration: the standard category describing the underlying software or hardware weakness.
CNA
CVE Numbering Authority: an organisation authorised to assign and publish CVE records.
CISA ADP
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Authorized Data Publisher: structured enrichment added to a CVE record.
NVD
National Vulnerability Database: NIST's enrichment service for CVE records.
CERT / CSIRT
A computer security incident response team that publishes warnings or coordinates incident response.
PoC
Proof of concept: public material that demonstrates or helps reproduce exploitation.
CSAF
Common Security Advisory Framework: a machine-readable format for security advisories.
LoTL
Living off the land: abuse of legitimate tools or system functions during an attack.
Free version - for non-commercial use only.CVE-2026-78234 · cve.blacktree.nl