CVE-2026-78234: Improper Certificate Validation in Red Hat Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4
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.
AI Analysis
Technical Summary
The hawtio-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. Exploitation enables cross-tenant service impersonation and remote code execution via Jolokia MBean invocation on Java workloads. Red Hat recommends stopping the operator from reading the Service CA signing key and instead using the Kubernetes CSR API with a dedicated signer or a Hawtio-private CA.
Potential Impact
This vulnerability allows users with edit permissions in any namespace to obtain certificates signed by the cluster Service CA with arbitrary Common Names. These certificates can be used to impersonate any in-cluster service identity trusted by the Service CA, potentially leading to unauthorized access and privilege escalation. Additionally, via Jolokia MBean invocation on Java workloads, remote code execution is possible. The vulnerability affects confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the cluster, with a CVSS score of 9.9 indicating critical severity.
Mitigation Recommendations
Red Hat recommends not setting spec.routeHostName to values outside the operator's own namespace service names. Restrict which users can create or modify Hawtio custom resources via RBAC to limit edit access. Audit existing Hawtio custom resource instances for unexpected routeHostName values and rotate any TLS certificates that may have been issued with incorrect Common Names. Red Hat advises that the operator should stop reading the Service CA signing key and instead use the Kubernetes CSR API with a dedicated signer or a Hawtio-private CA. Patch status is not yet confirmed — check the Red Hat advisory at https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-78234 for current remediation guidance.
CVE-2026-78234: Improper Certificate Validation in Red Hat Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4
Description
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.
CVSS v3.1
Score 9.9critical
AI-Powered Analysis
Machine-generated threat intelligence
Technical Analysis
The hawtio-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. Exploitation enables cross-tenant service impersonation and remote code execution via Jolokia MBean invocation on Java workloads. Red Hat recommends stopping the operator from reading the Service CA signing key and instead using the Kubernetes CSR API with a dedicated signer or a Hawtio-private CA.
Potential Impact
This vulnerability allows users with edit permissions in any namespace to obtain certificates signed by the cluster Service CA with arbitrary Common Names. These certificates can be used to impersonate any in-cluster service identity trusted by the Service CA, potentially leading to unauthorized access and privilege escalation. Additionally, via Jolokia MBean invocation on Java workloads, remote code execution is possible. The vulnerability affects confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the cluster, with a CVSS score of 9.9 indicating critical severity.
Mitigation Recommendations
Red Hat recommends not setting spec.routeHostName to values outside the operator's own namespace service names. Restrict which users can create or modify Hawtio custom resources via RBAC to limit edit access. Audit existing Hawtio custom resource instances for unexpected routeHostName values and rotate any TLS certificates that may have been issued with incorrect Common Names. Red Hat advises that the operator should stop reading the Service CA signing key and instead use the Kubernetes CSR API with a dedicated signer or a Hawtio-private CA. Patch status is not yet confirmed — check the Red Hat advisory at https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-78234 for current remediation guidance.
Technical Details
- Data Version
- 5.2
- Assigner Short Name
- redhat
- Date Reserved
- 2026-08-27T10:25:52.070Z
- Cvss Version
- 3.1
- State
- PUBLISHED
- Remediation Level
- null
- Vendor Advisory Urls
- [{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-78234","vendor":"Red Hat"}]
Threat ID: 6a9ff394acd9273b49949e32
Added to database: 09/08/2026, 11:37:56 UTC
Last enriched: 09/08/2026, 11:52:39 UTC
Last updated: 09/08/2026, 19:18:25 UTC
Views: 15
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