CVE 2026 97847

A flaw was found in the protocol mapper and identity resolution components of Keycloak. The issue occurs when a client manager uses hardcoded-claim mappers to override identity claims in sessionless service-account tokens. Because these tokens lack a session ID, Keycloak may incorrectly resolve the token bearer as a different, highly privileged user based on the manipulated claims. This can allow an attacker with limited client management permissions to impersonate a realm administrator and gain full control over the realm.

The Red Hat Product Security team has assessed the severity of this vulnerability as Important, given that exploitation requires the attacker to possess specific client management privileges and knowledge of administrative identifiers. Successful exploitation allows an attacker to obtain full realm administrator authority, enabling them to read, modify, or delete any data within the affected realm. The vulnerability's root cause is an improper identity resolution mechanism that fails to validate the integrity of identity claims in sessionless tokens when protocol mappers are applied.

Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.

Bugzilla 2540950 : keycloak-services: keycloak-services: Client manager can substitute sessionless token principal via hardcoded-claim mappers to obtain realm administrator authority

CWE-287 : Improper Authentication

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:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:L

cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:L

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Integrity,Confidentiality,Availability,Access Control

Technical Impact: Read Application Data; Gain Privileges or Assume Identity; Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands

This weakness can lead to the exposure of resources or functionality to unintended actors, possibly providing attackers with sensitive information or even execute arbitrary code.

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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