Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessAuthenticate to AAP with namespace management role
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DeliverySet namespace avatar URL to internal/metadata endpoint
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ExploitBackground worker fetches attacker-controlled URL
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ExecutionRead internal service response or cloud credentials
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ImpactRepeat with unresponsive host to stall worker pool
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A01:2025 - Broken Access Control
ASVS 5.0
V4 - API and Web Service URL allowlisting, SSRF prevention
MITRE ATT&CK
2 techniques across 2 tactics: Initial Access, Credential Access The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Exploitation Conditions | Exploitation requires an authenticated AAP user account with namespace management permissions - this is not a default role granted to all users, but is a functional role in organizations that delegate Galaxy content curation. The vulnerability is triggered specifically through the namespace avatar URL update functionality; no other attack surface within galaxy_ng is implicated. The SSRF impact is gated by the network reachability of the AAP background worker nodes: in air-gapped or strictly egress-filtered deployments, internal probing is limited to locally reachable services. The cloud metadata DoS/credential-theft risk is contingent on the deployment being hosted on a cloud provider with a metadata endpoint (AWS, GCP, Azure) and that endpoint being reachable from the worker. The DoS component (worker starvation) requires no special conditions beyond the namespace management role and benefits from repeated submissions. Authentication requirements are confirmed: CVSS PR:L establishes that a low-privileged authenticated user (with the namespace management role specifically) is required; unauthenticated exploitation is not possible. |
| Impact | The NVD CVSS 3.1 score of 6.4 (Medium) with vector AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:L accurately reflects the constrained but real risk profile. The scope-change (S:C) is the most significant signal - exploitation pivots from the application layer into internal network infrastructure, which is disproportionately dangerous in cloud-hosted or Kubernetes-deployed AAP instances where the metadata endpoint (169.254.169.254 or IMDSv2) could expose credentials. However, PR:L is a meaningful constraint: the attacker must be an authenticated platform user with namespace management rights, which is not an anonymous or low-bar condition in enterprise deployments. No EPSS data was provided in source intelligence; without it, exploitation probability cannot be quantified. No POC is publicly known and CISA KEV does not list this CVE, so exploitation remains theoretical at time of analysis. The DoS vector (worker starvation) is a secondary but operationally relevant risk for organizations with high Galaxy traffic or limited worker processes. The primary real-world risk is cloud metadata credential theft in misconfigured deployments, not broad arbitrary code execution. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker with a legitimate AAP account and namespace management permissions navigates to the namespace settings page and sets the avatar URL to http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/iam/security-credentials/ (or a similar cloud metadata path). The background worker fetches the URL from the server's network context, returning IAM credential material or internal service banners in a response the attacker can observe. Separately, the attacker submits multiple avatar URLs pointing to a slow-responding internal host with no timeout, pinning worker threads and degrading Galaxy background processing for all platform users. No public exploit code is required; the attack is achievable with standard HTTP tooling and a valid AAP session. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Aug 25, 2026
Server-side request forgery in galaxy_ng, the Ansible Galaxy server plugin for Pulp, allows authenticated users holding namespace management permissions to redirect a background worker process into probing arbitrary internal network addresses, including loopback interfaces and cloud instance metadata endpoints (e.g., 169.254.169.254). The dual-impact vulnerability enables both internal network reconnaissance (enumerating reachable IPs and reading service responses) and a denial-of-service condition against background workers due to the absence of an HTTP client timeout. No public exploit has been identified at time of analysis, and no confirmed KEV listing exists; however, the scope-changing CVSS vector (S:C) reflects that impact crosses trust boundaries from the application into adjacent internal infrastructure.
RemediationAI
The primary remediation is to apply the vendor-released patch once Red Hat issues an updated galaxy_ng package via the AAP 2 errata channel at https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-79717; no specific fixed version number is confirmed in available intelligence, so monitor that advisory for the patched release. Until a patch is available, the most effective compensating control is to restrict namespace management permissions to a minimal set of trusted users via AAP RBAC, since the attack requires that specific role - reducing the permission footprint directly limits the attacker population. A second compensating control is to deploy network egress filtering on the AAP worker nodes to block outbound connections to RFC-1918 private address ranges (10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, 192.168.0.0/16), loopback (127.0.0.0/8), and link-local metadata addresses (169.254.0.0/16); this prevents SSRF probing of internal services but does not address the timeout-based DoS. For cloud deployments on AWS, enabling IMDSv2 (requiring a PUT-based token exchange) substantially mitigates metadata endpoint exposure. Note that egress filtering may break legitimate external avatar URL fetching if rules are too broad.
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Technical ContextAI · show details
galaxy_ng is the server-side plugin that implements Ansible Galaxy functionality on top of the Pulp content management platform, used within Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 (CPE: cpe:2.3:a:red_hat:red_hat_ansible_automation_platform_2:*). The vulnerability exists in the namespace avatar feature: when an authenticated user with namespace management permissions updates a namespace avatar, they supply a URL that a background worker process subsequently fetches asynchronously. The root cause is CWE-918 (Server-Side Request Forgery): the worker performs the outbound HTTP request without validating or restricting the destination to a safe allowlist, and without implementing an overall connection or read timeout. This means the server itself acts as a proxy for the attacker's reconnaissance requests, and a deliberately slow or unresponsive target server can hold a worker thread open indefinitely, progressively exhausting the background worker pool.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:L
Network-reachable via authenticated namespace manager (PR:L); scope changes as worker fetches cross trust boundary; no integrity impact; partial availability impact from worker starvation.
Primary rating from Vendor (redhat).
CVSS VectorVendor: redhat
DescriptionCVE.org
A server-side request forgery (SSRF) vulnerability was found in galaxy_ng, the Ansible Galaxy server plugin for Pulp. An authenticated user with namespace management permissions can set a namespace avatar URL to an arbitrary address, including internal networks, loopback, or cloud instance metadata endpoints. A background worker fetches that URL without checking the destination, which lets the attacker probe internal services and enumerate reachable IP addresses. The HTTP client is also configured without an overall timeout, so a slow or non-responsive target can pin workers and cause a denial of service.
Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
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What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Server-Side Request Forgery exploits applications that fetch remote resources based on user-supplied URLs.
Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.
Affected Products (CPE)CVE.org
Missing authorization checks in the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 automation-controller allow an authenticated o
Authenticated users who hold permission to create or modify a project within a single organization can execute arbitrary
Privilege escalation and remote code execution on managed hosts is possible in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 bec
Credential disclosure in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.5 and 2.6 allows any authenticated user to retrieve plain
Server-side request forgery in the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 Controller's HashiCorp Vault credential plugin
Privilege escalation in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 (built on the AWX upstream project) lets an authenticated
Arbitrary file write in pulpcore's FilesystemExport feature allows an authenticated administrator to escape the intended
Symlink-following file overwrite on the Ansible control node is possible in ansible-core when a user runs `ansible-galax
Stored cross-site scripting in the automation-controller component of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 lets an auth
An authenticated automation-controller administrator in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 can turn the administrator
Jinja2 template injection in Ansible Operator Plugins (CWE-1336) lets an authenticated Kubernetes user who can create or
Missing object-level authorization in the JobTemplate copy endpoint (CopyAPIView) of AWX and Red Hat Ansible Automation
EUVD-2026-65511
GHSA-86r5-w5c4-h244
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Exploit-DB