CVE-2026-18949: Execution with Unnecessary Privileges in Red Hat Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI)
CVE-2026-18949 is a critical vulnerability in Red Hat OpenShift AI's odh-dashboard component. It arises from overly broad permissions granted to the dashboard's Service Account, allowing an attacker who compromises this token to escalate privileges to cluster-administrator level. This enables access to sensitive cluster-wide credentials and keys and can disrupt multi-tenant isolation. The vulnerability affects deployments with the dashboard component enabled. No official patch or fix has been confirmed yet. Mitigations include restricting access to the opendatahub namespace, implementing egress NetworkPolicy rules, and configuring audit log alerting for unexpected ClusterRoleBindings creation.
AI Analysis
Technical Summary
This vulnerability in Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) involves the odh-dashboard's Service Account having excessive cluster-wide permissions via its ClusterRole. An attacker who compromises the dashboard's Service Account token can exploit these permissions to escalate privileges to cluster-admin level, read and delete sensitive secrets, create ClusterRoleBindings, and break multi-tenant isolation. The issue is due to the ClusterRole granting broad CRUD permissions on secrets and RBAC management resources. The vulnerability is present in deployments with the dashboard component enabled. Red Hat has not yet provided an official fix but recommends mitigations to limit the risk.
Potential Impact
An attacker with access to the odh-dashboard Service Account token can escalate privileges to full cluster-administrator level, gaining access to sensitive data such as credentials and keys across the entire cluster. This compromises confidentiality, integrity, and availability of cluster resources and disrupts multi-tenant isolation, potentially allowing unauthorized control and denial of service within the cluster.
Mitigation Recommendations
No official patch or fix is currently confirmed. Red Hat advises restricting access to the opendatahub namespace to reduce the risk of dashboard pod compromise. Implement egress NetworkPolicy rules to control outbound traffic from the dashboard. Configure audit log alerting to detect unexpected creation of ClusterRoleBindings. These mitigations help reduce exposure until an official fix is released. Monitor the Red Hat advisory for updates on patch availability.
CVE-2026-18949: Execution with Unnecessary Privileges in Red Hat Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI)
Description
CVE-2026-18949 is a critical vulnerability in Red Hat OpenShift AI's odh-dashboard component. It arises from overly broad permissions granted to the dashboard's Service Account, allowing an attacker who compromises this token to escalate privileges to cluster-administrator level. This enables access to sensitive cluster-wide credentials and keys and can disrupt multi-tenant isolation. The vulnerability affects deployments with the dashboard component enabled. No official patch or fix has been confirmed yet. Mitigations include restricting access to the opendatahub namespace, implementing egress NetworkPolicy rules, and configuring audit log alerting for unexpected ClusterRoleBindings creation.
CVSS v3.1
Score 8.8high
AI-Powered Analysis
Machine-generated threat intelligence
Technical Analysis
This vulnerability in Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) involves the odh-dashboard's Service Account having excessive cluster-wide permissions via its ClusterRole. An attacker who compromises the dashboard's Service Account token can exploit these permissions to escalate privileges to cluster-admin level, read and delete sensitive secrets, create ClusterRoleBindings, and break multi-tenant isolation. The issue is due to the ClusterRole granting broad CRUD permissions on secrets and RBAC management resources. The vulnerability is present in deployments with the dashboard component enabled. Red Hat has not yet provided an official fix but recommends mitigations to limit the risk.
Potential Impact
An attacker with access to the odh-dashboard Service Account token can escalate privileges to full cluster-administrator level, gaining access to sensitive data such as credentials and keys across the entire cluster. This compromises confidentiality, integrity, and availability of cluster resources and disrupts multi-tenant isolation, potentially allowing unauthorized control and denial of service within the cluster.
Mitigation Recommendations
No official patch or fix is currently confirmed. Red Hat advises restricting access to the opendatahub namespace to reduce the risk of dashboard pod compromise. Implement egress NetworkPolicy rules to control outbound traffic from the dashboard. Configure audit log alerting to detect unexpected creation of ClusterRoleBindings. These mitigations help reduce exposure until an official fix is released. Monitor the Red Hat advisory for updates on patch availability.
Technical Details
- Data Version
- 5.2
- Assigner Short Name
- redhat
- Date Reserved
- 2026-08-05T13:39:50.738Z
- Cvss Version
- 3.1
- State
- PUBLISHED
- Remediation Level
- null
- Vendor Advisory Urls
- [{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-18949","vendor":"Red Hat"}]
Threat ID: 6a7a3b16bf8831d53985668e
Added to database: 08/10/2026, 20:56:54 UTC
Last enriched: 08/10/2026, 21:12:05 UTC
Last updated: 08/11/2026, 04:00:17 UTC
Views: 7
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