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SUSE Rancher Manager EUVDEUVD-2026-114186

| CVE-2026-104623 MEDIUM
Authentication Bypass by Spoofing (CWE-290)
2026-10-30 suse
6.3
CVSS 3.1 · Vendor: suse
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Attack ChainAIDerived

Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain

  1. Access
    Authenticate to Rancher with any low-privileged account
  2. Delivery
    Issue shell request in an alternative API route form
  3. Exploit
    Bypass the local-cluster authorization check
  4. Execution
    Spawn unprivileged shell pod in cattle-system on management cluster
  5. Impact
    Gain unauthorized compute and in-namespace network foothold

Vulnerability Assessment

Weakness
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A07:2025 - Authentication Failures
ASVS 5.0
V6 - Authentication Anti-spoofing controls
MITRE ATT&CK

1 technique across 1 tactic: Defense Evasion

The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up.

Exploitation Conditions

Requires only an authenticated Rancher account reaching the local (management) cluster shell endpoint - including a user with the default user global role and no role bindings on the local cluster and no administrative privileges. Deployments in a DEFAULT configuration are affected; no non-default feature flag or setting must be enabled. Exploitation uses an alternative API request form that reaches the shell handler without the authorization check being evaluated. The one limiting factor is that the attacker must already hold a valid authenticated Rancher account (PR:L), so exposure scales with the number and governance of Rancher users; it is not reachable by fully unauthenticated attackers.

Impact

This is a moderate-severity authorization bypass (CVSS 6.3, CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L) in SUSE Rancher Manager's local (management) cluster shell feature, and the signals point to a real but bounded priority rather than an emergency. The vuln.today decision label is 'this_month' (not act_now/emergency), consistent with the moderate impact. No CISA KEV listing and no EPSS score were supplied, and there is no public exploit identified at time of analysis - so there is no evidence of active or at-scale exploitation. The CVSS vector is internally consistent with the GHSA description: AV:N/AC:L (reachable over the network via an alternative API request form that evades the access check, no special conditions) and PR:L (any authenticated Rancher user suffices, including a default user global role with no local cluster bindings). The Low C/I/A impacts align with the vendor's own framing: the spawned pod is unprivileged and its Kubernetes API access stays scoped to the requesting user's identity, so it grants no additional Kubernetes permissions - the harm is an isolation break (unauthorized compute and an in-namespace network position in cattle-system on the management plane). One metadata conflict to flag: the input Tags/NVD-style CWE label this 'Authentication Bypass' (CWE-290), but the authoritative GHSA classifies it as missing/incorrect authorization (CWE-862/CWE-863) and explicitly requires an authenticated account - this is an authorization bypass, not an authentication bypass. The practical priority driver is population size: any authenticated account, however low-privileged, can reach the management cluster, so environments with many or loosely-governed Rancher users carry meaningfully more risk.

Exploit ScenarioDerived

A low-privileged user who holds only a default Rancher account (no local cluster roles) sends the shell request in an alternative API form that the added authorization check never evaluates, and receives an interactive shell pod in the cattle-system namespace of the management cluster. Because AV:N/AC:L/PR:L and the default configuration is affected, no user interaction, special privileges, or non-default settings are needed beyond a valid login. No public exploit code was identified at time of analysis.

This Month Plan within 30 days. Why: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9).
Patch available 0.3% exploitation probability (EPSS)

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AnalysisAIv1 – Oct 30, 2026

SUSE Rancher Manager fails to enforce its local (management) cluster shell authorization check on every API route that can reach the shell handler, so an alternative request form lets any authenticated Rancher user spawn an interactive shell pod in the cattle-system namespace on the management cluster. Affected are Rancher 2.11.x through 2.15.x branches before the fixed releases, in default configurations with no special feature flag enabled; exploitation requires a valid Rancher account (CVSS PR:L) and no permissions on the local cluster. The spawned dashboard-shell-* pod runs unprivileged and its Kubernetes API access stays scoped to the requesting user's own identity, so the bypass yields compute and in-namespace network presence on the management plane rather than additional Kubernetes privileges; no public exploit code was identified at time of analysis, and the flaw is a bypass of the protection added for CVE-2022-21953.

RemediationAI

Vendor-released patches are available: upgrade to Rancher v2.15.3, v2.14.7, v2.13.11, v2.12.15 or v2.11.19 per the branch you run, as documented in the GHSA advisory at https://github.com/rancher/rancher/security/advisories/GHSA-8x6f-2v58-x6p7. The fix is server-side only, is not a breaking change, and leaves legitimate shell access for administrators and users authorized on the local cluster intact, so no user action beyond upgrading is required. The vendor states that no workaround fully addresses the issue other than upgrading; until then, exposure can be reduced by restricting and reviewing the set of users who hold Rancher accounts (any authenticated account is sufficient to be affected), by placing Rancher behind a reverse proxy, ingress policy or WAF that rejects requests to the local cluster shell endpoints for all clients except trusted administrative networks that legitimately need shell access, and by monitoring the cattle-system namespace on the local cluster for unexpected dashboard-shell-* pods. Administrators who suspect pre-upgrade targeting should review that namespace for unexplained dashboard-shell-* pods, remove any that are unaccounted for, and review Rancher audit logs for unexpected shell requests.

Affected VersionsENISA

Rancher 2.12.0 <2.12.15
Rancher 2.15.0 <2.15.3
Rancher 2.13.0 <2.13.11
Rancher 2.14.0 <2.14.7
Rancher 2.11.0 <2.11.19

Affected Packages

euvd rancher fix: 2.11.19, 2.12.15, 2.13.11, 2.14.7, 2.15.3

Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)

Affects your stack

Affects 1 package in euvd

Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.

Technical ContextAI · show details

Rancher Manager is a Kubernetes management platform whose UI/API exposes a web-based shell that launches short-lived pods (named dashboard-shell-*) in the cattle-system namespace of the local, i.e. management, cluster. The root cause class falls under authorization/authentication bypass (the CVE record maps it to CWE-290, while the upstream GHSA classifies it as CWE-862/CWE-863, missing or improper authorization checks). A prior fix for CVE-2022-21953 added an access check intended to gate this shell feature, but that check was wired to a single API route form and was not evaluated for other request forms that also reach the same shell handler. The handler therefore relied on an outer authorization gate that an alternative request form could route around, and the upstream patch moves the authorization evaluation into the handler itself so it is applied consistently to every request form. The technology involved is the Go-based Rancher server (module go/github.com/rancher/rancher) and its REST API; because the resulting shell pod is unprivileged and its Kubernetes credentials are the requesting user's own, the concrete impact is management-plane resource consumption and network positioning inside cattle-system rather than privilege escalation.

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  • Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources

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Severity by source

Vendor (suse) PRIMARY 6.3 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L
vuln.today AI 6.3 MEDIUM

Any authenticated user over the network with no special conditions (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N); unauthorized pod yields limited confidentiality, integrity and resource/availability impact scoped to the user's identity, so C/I/A:L and S:U.

3.1 AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L
4.0 AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Primary rating from Vendor (suse).

CVSS VectorVendor: suse

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
Low

Lifecycle Timeline

1
Patch available
Oct 30, 2026 - 18:03 EUVD

DescriptionCVE.org

A security vulnerability exists in the authorization handling for the local (management) cluster shell feature of SUSE Rancher Manager 2.15.0 up to 2.15.3, 2.14.0 up to 2.14.7, 2.13.0 up to 2.13.11, 2.12.0 up to 2.12.15, 2.11.0 up to 2.11.19 and possible older versions. The authorization check that was introduced to protect this feature was not applied to every API route that can reach it, so an alternative request form reached the shell handler without the access check being evaluated. This could allow any authenticated users to run a pod on the management cluster.

Threat Intelligence Overview

EPSS Score
0.3%
Top 80% exploitable
Prevalence
Medium
widely-used enterprise Kubernetes management platform, common but not ubiquitous
Data Quality
5 sources
Confidence: Medium
EUVD NVD CVE.org EPSS Vulnrichment GitHub VulDB

How this decision was reached

The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.

SignalValue
Severity MEDIUM
CISA KEV No
Public POC No
EPSS 0.3%
Patch available Yes
Active threat No
Deciding rule
MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9)
What every action level means
Emergency Immediate action required. Criteria: CRITICAL + in CISA KEV (actively exploited) without patch, OR CRITICAL + EPSS > 30% without patch, OR CRITICAL + active threat signals without patch.
Act Now Prioritize within 24-48h. Criteria: in KEV with patch available, OR CRITICAL + public POC, OR HIGH + EPSS > 10%, OR CRITICAL + active threat, OR any CRITICAL severity.
This Week Schedule remediation this week. Criteria: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9). Patch within normal change window.
This Month Plan within 30 days. Criteria: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9), lower exploitation probability. Include in regular patch cycle.
Monitor Track and reassess. Criteria: LOW severity (CVSS 0.1-3.9), minimal exploitation risk. No immediate action needed.

SSVC AssessmentENISA

SSVC Decision· derived
Scheduled
Exploitation
None
System Exposure· derived
Open
Automatable
No
Human Impact· derived
Medium
Technical Impact
Partial

Priority Score

32
Low Medium High Critical
KEV: 0
EPSS: 0
CVSS: +32
PoC: 0
Weaponized: 0
Threat intel: 0
Gov advisory: 0

Attack Technique

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