CyberSecBulletin
CVE-2026-10090NVD status: Awaiting Analysis

Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for…: Privilege Defined With Unsafe Actions

Published Updated By the CyberSecBulletin desk

CVE-2026-10090 is a critical-severity privilege defined with unsafe actions vulnerability in Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.11 from Red Hat, with a CVSS 3.1 base score of 9.0 out of 10. It can be exploited remotely over the network by an attacker with administrator privileges, without any action from a user. There is no confirmed exploitation so far. EPSS estimates a 0.58% chance of exploitation within 30 days, which is low compared with other CVEs.

Patch this week

Critical severity: a successful attack would have severe impact.

What to do

  1. Check which version of Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.11 you run against the affected versions below, and install the vendor's latest release.

Affected products and versions

VendorProductAffected versionsFixed in
Red HatRed Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.11Not specified in the recordNot stated
Red HatRed Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.13Not specified in the recordNot stated
Red HatRed Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.14Not specified in the recordNot stated
Red HatRed Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.15Not specified in the recordNot stated
Red HatRed Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.16Not specified in the recordNot stated
Red HatRed Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.17Not specified in the recordNot stated

Version data comes from the organisation that assigned the CVE. Confirm against the vendor advisory before deciding you are unaffected.

How the severity score breaks down

Attack vector
NetworkCan be exploited remotely over a network, including the internet.
Attack complexity
LowNo special conditions are needed; the attack works reliably.
Privileges required
HighAdministrator-level access is required first.
User interaction
NoneNo action by a victim is required.
Scope
ChangedThe attack can reach beyond the vulnerable component into other systems.
Confidentiality
HighAll data handled by the component can be read.
Integrity
HighData or code can be modified at will.
Availability
LowPerformance or availability is reduced.

Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:L. Scored by CNA (redhat.com).

Official description

A flaw was found in the Application Subscription controller (multicluster-operators-subscription) of Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes (ACM). A user with namespace-scoped "edit" privileges in an ACM hub namespace can create a Channel resource pointing to a Helm repository they control and a Subscription resource referencing it. The app-subscription controller fetches and applies the Helm chart contents with its own elevated authority, without verifying whether the subscription creator holds the "open-cluster-management:subscription-admin" role and without restricting applied resources to the subscription namespace. This allows the attacker to include cluster-scoped resources in the Helm chart, such as a ClusterRoleBinding granting the attacker's ServiceAccount the "cluster-admin" ClusterRole. Successful exploitation results in full cluster-admin privilege escalation. This contradicts the ACM documentation which states that non-subscription-admin users should have resources deployed into the subscription namespace only.

Source: the CVE record as published by its numbering authority, via NVD and CVE.org.

The underlying weakness: Privilege Defined With Unsafe Actions

A particular privilege, role, capability, or right can be used to perform unsafe actions that were not intended, even when it is assigned to the correct entity.

How developers prevent this class of flaw

  • Very carefully manage the setting, management, and handling of privileges. Explicitly manage trust zones in the software.
  • Run your code using the lowest privileges that are required to accomplish the necessary tasks. If possible, create isolated accounts with limited privileges that are only used for a single task. That way, a successful attack will not immediately give the attacker access to the rest of the software or its environment. For example, database applications rarely need to run as the database administrator, especially in day-to-day operations.

More Privilege Defined With Unsafe Actions vulnerabilities (CWE-267)

Timeline

  1. CVE record published.
  2. CISA published its SSVC assessment (exploitation: none, automatable: no, technical impact: total).
  3. Record last changed materially (score, affected products, status or references).

References

Other vulnerabilities in Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.11

All Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.11 vulnerabilities

Recent Privilege Defined With Unsafe Actions vulnerabilities

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