CVE-2025-9908 is a vulnerability identified in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform version 2.5 running on RHEL 8, specifically affecting the Event-Driven Ansible (EDA) Event Streams feature. This flaw permits an authenticated user to retrieve sensitive internal infrastructure headers such as X-Trusted-Proxy and X-Envoy-* headers, along with event stream URLs, by submitting specially crafted requests and job templates. These headers are critical for internal trust and routing mechanisms within the platform's event streaming infrastructure. By exfiltrating these headers, an attacker can impersonate trusted internal components, enabling spoofing of requests and potentially escalating privileges within the automation environment. Additionally, the attacker could inject malicious events into the event stream, potentially disrupting automation workflows or causing unauthorized actions. The vulnerability requires the attacker to have authenticated access to the platform, but does not require further user interaction. The CVSS 3.1 score of 6.7 reflects a medium severity with high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability, and low attack complexity. No public exploits have been reported yet, but the exposure of these headers poses a significant risk to the security posture of affected environments. The vulnerability was published on February 27, 2026, and no patches or mitigations have been linked yet, though Red Hat is the vendor responsible for the product.

The impact of CVE-2025-9908 is significant for organizations relying on Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.5 for RHEL 8, especially those using the Event-Driven Ansible Event Streams feature. Exposure of internal headers like X-Trusted-Proxy and X-Envoy-* can allow attackers to spoof trusted internal requests, leading to unauthorized privilege escalation and manipulation of automation workflows. This can result in unauthorized changes to infrastructure, disruption of automated processes, and potential lateral movement within the network. Confidentiality is compromised as sensitive internal URLs and headers are exposed. Integrity is at risk due to possible malicious event injection, which can alter the intended behavior of automation jobs. Availability may also be affected if injected events cause failures or denial of service in automation pipelines. Since exploitation requires authenticated access, the threat is more relevant in environments with weak access controls or compromised user credentials. The absence of known exploits in the wild currently reduces immediate risk but does not eliminate the potential for future attacks. Organizations with critical infrastructure automated via Ansible and those with complex event-driven automation workflows are particularly vulnerable.

To mitigate CVE-2025-9908, organizations should first monitor Red Hat advisories for official patches or updates addressing this vulnerability and apply them promptly once available. Until patches are released, restrict access to the Ansible Automation Platform’s Event-Driven Ansible Event Streams interface to only highly trusted and necessary users, enforcing strict authentication and authorization controls. Implement network segmentation and firewall rules to limit exposure of the platform’s management interfaces to internal trusted networks only. Conduct thorough audits of user accounts and credentials to ensure that only authorized personnel have access, and enforce strong multi-factor authentication (MFA) to reduce the risk of credential compromise. Review and harden job templates and event stream configurations to detect and prevent injection of crafted requests. Employ monitoring and logging to detect unusual access patterns or attempts to retrieve internal headers. Consider deploying runtime application self-protection (RASP) or web application firewalls (WAF) that can detect and block suspicious crafted requests targeting the event streams. Finally, educate administrators and users about the risks of privilege escalation and the importance of safeguarding credentials and access to automation platforms.