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CVE 2026 12540

access.redhat.com • October 2, 2026

A flaw was found in Foreman. A command injection vulnerability exists in the foreman-rake errors:fetch_log task. The request_id parameter is passed to an underlying system command (typically grep) without adequate shell neutralization. While the task is intended to fetch specific log entries, an attacker with sudo permissions to execute this rake task can inject shell metacharacters (such as ;, ", or |) to break out of the intended command and execute arbitrary code.

Successful exploitation of this issue allows a restricted user to escalate privileges to the foreman user and subsequently to root across all managed hosts, organizations and locations. This represents a complete compromise of the Red Hat Satellite server and the entire infrastructure it manages.

Red Hat has investigated whether a possible mitigation exists for this issue, and has not been able to identify a practical example. Please update the affected package as soon as possible.

Bugzilla 2489969 : foreman: command injection in foreman-rake errors:fetch_log via request_id parameter

CWE-78 : Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command ('OS Command Injection')

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 ).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Confidentiality,Integrity,Availability,Non-Repudiation

Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands; DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; Read Files or Directories; Modify Files or Directories; Read Application Data; Modify Application Data; Hide Activities

Attackers could execute unauthorized operating system commands, which could then be used to disable the product, or read and modify data for which the attacker does not have permissions to access directly. Since the targeted application is directly executing the commands instead of the attacker, any malicious activities may appear to come from the application or the application's owner.

This issue was discovered by Laura Pardo (Red Hat) and Toni Gornals (Red Hat).

Frequently Asked Questions

"Under investigation" doesn't necessarily mean that the product is affected by this vulnerability. It only means that our Analysis Team is still working on determining whether the product is affected and how it is affected.

The term 'Affected' means that our Analysis team has determined that this product, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 or OpenShift Container Platform 4, is affected by this vulnerability and a fix may be released to address this issue in the near future. This includes all minor releases of this product unless noted otherwise in the Statement text.

Upgrade to a supported product version that includes a fix for this vulnerability (recommended).

Apply a mitigation (if one exists).

Customers with the Technical Account Manager (TAM) RHEL Security Select Add-on can review this CVE directly with their TAM.

Apply a mitigation (if one exists).

Red Hat Engineering focuses on addressing high-priority issues based on the impact and product lifecycle expectations. Therefore, lower-priority issues will not receive immediate fixes.

Customers with the technical account manager (TAM) RHEL Security Select Add-on can review this CVE directly with their TAM.

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