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Attack ChainAIDerived

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

  1. Access
    Authenticate as low-privilege EST user via BasicAuth
  2. Delivery
    Submit fullcmc enrollment without client TLS cert
  3. Exploit
    Session retains agent certificate in SSL_CLIENT_CERT
  4. Execution
    Authorization treats request as agent-privileged
  5. Impact
    Obtain CA-signed cert with arbitrary subject name

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 a valid, low-privileged EST user account (PR:L) and a Dogtag PKI / Red Hat Certificate System deployment with the EST subsystem enabled and the CMCAuthForEST authentication plugin in use. The attacker must submit an EST fullcmc enrollment request via BasicAuth while deliberately presenting no end-user TLS client certificate, so that the SSL_CLIENT_CERT attribute retains the EST agent certificate. Limiting factors: EST/fullcmc enrollment must be configured (not all PKI deployments expose EST), and the attacker must already hold EST enrollment credentials - this is a privilege escalation, not remote-unauthenticated access. No end-user client certificate or user interaction is required, which lowers the practical bar for an insider or any provisioned EST user.

Impact

This is a credible, actionable priority rather than a high-CVSS-but-low-real-risk issue. The CVSS 3.1 vector (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N) is internally consistent with the description: a network-reachable EST enrollment endpoint, low attack complexity (submit a fullcmc request over BasicAuth without a client cert), and low privileges (PR:L - any valid EST user account). The impact is severe and specific: an authenticated EST user escalates to agent-privileged certificate issuance and can mint CA-signed certificates with arbitrary subject names, which is effectively identity forgery across the entire PKI trust domain, justifying C:H/I:H. No EPSS score, no CISA KEV listing, and no public POC are present in the input, so exploitation probability signals are absent - consistent with a freshly disclosed Red Hat-reported flaw. There is no conflict between the CVSS vector and the description. The one caveat: this is a privilege-escalation/authentication-bypass (fail-open) bug that requires an existing low-privileged EST account, so it is not remote-unauthenticated mass-exploitable; real-world risk is highest in environments that provision broad EST user access. The CWE-290 (authentication bypass by spoofing) classification matches the fail-open behavior described.

Exploit ScenarioDerived

An authenticated EST user with only basic enrollment rights submits a fullcmc enrollment request over BasicAuth, deliberately omitting an end-user TLS client certificate. Because the SSL_CLIENT_CERT session attribute still holds the EST subsystem's own agent certificate, downstream authorization treats the request as agent-privileged, and the attacker is issued CA-signed certificates bearing arbitrary subject names (enabling impersonation of any identity). No public exploit code is identified in the provided data, but the attack requires no special tooling beyond a standard EST client.

This Week Schedule remediation this week. Why: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9).
No patch listed yet 0.2% exploitation probability (EPSS)

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AnalysisAIv1 – Oct 02, 2026

Dogtag PKI (pki-core) and its commercial counterpart, Red Hat Certificate System 9/10/11, contain a fail-open authentication flaw in the CMCAuthForEST plugin that lets an authenticated, low-privileged EST enrollment user obtain CA-signed certificates bearing arbitrary subject names. The bug is triggered when an EST fullcmc enrollment request is sent over BasicAuth without an end-user TLS client certificate; the SSL_CLIENT_CERT session attribute then retains the EST subsystem's agent certificate, so downstream authorization logic wrongly grants agent-level privileges. Exploitation is assessed as requiring only a valid EST user account (CVSS 8.1, PR:L, unauthenticated by client certificate, no user interaction), making it a realistic privilege-escalation path for any provisioned EST user or insider; however, no public exploit code has been identified at time of analysis and the flaw is not confirmed as actively exploited (not in CISA KEV).

RemediationAI

No vendor-released patch version is identified in the available data (the references are the Red Hat CVE page https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-104988 and Bugzilla 2545316 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2545316), so until Red Hat publishes fixed pki-core packages, treat this as a mitigation-first situation. The most direct compensating control is to require mutual TLS client-certificate authentication for EST enrollment and to reject or explicitly strip HTTP BasicAuth on EST endpoints, which removes the path where SSL_CLIENT_CERT can retain the subsystem agent certificate; the trade-off is that any existing EST clients hard-coded to BasicAuth will need reconfiguration. If EST fullcmc enrollment is not operationally required, disabling the EST subsystem (or at minimum the fullcmc path) eliminates exposure entirely, at the cost of losing automated EST issuance. Where EST must remain, restrict network reachability to the EST listener to trusted management networks and known client IPs via firewall or reverse-proxy ACLs, accepting that this limits the enrollment surface and must be kept in sync as clients move. Also confirm the CMCAuthForEST plugin is not in use if an alternative authentication plugin exists in your release, and deploy monitoring/alerting on the CA for certificate issuance events whose subject does not match a known enrollment profile, with a documented certificate-revocation runbook, so that any anomalous issuance is detected and revoked promptly. Prioritize patching as soon as Red Hat releases updated pki-core packages, and track the Bugzilla and Red Hat CVE pages for the fix version.

Affects your stack

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Technical ContextAI · show details

The vulnerability is a CWE-290 authentication bypass by spoofing, rooted in the way Dogtag PKI's EST subsystem establishes session state. EST (Enrollment over Secure Transport, RFC 7030) supports fullcmc enrollment in which a client submits a CMC (Certificate Management over CMS / RFC 5273) request, typically authenticated via a TLS client certificate. The CMCAuthForEST authentication plugin is responsible for mapping the EST request to an authorized identity. When a fullcmc request arrives over HTTP BasicAuth rather than mutual TLS, no end-user client certificate is placed into the request's SSL_CLIENT_CERT session attribute; instead of clearing or rejecting that attribute, the code leaves the EST subsystem's own agent certificate in place. Because downstream authorization checks trust SSL_CLIENT_CERT as the caller's identity, they treat the BasicAuth request as if it originated from the agent certificate, effectively granting agent privileges. The result is that a low-privileged EST user - authenticated by username/password only, with PR:L in the CVSS vector - can drive CA certificate issuance with attacker-chosen subject names. The advisory CPE data pins the issue to Red Hat Certificate System 9, 10 and 11 and to the corresponding Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 through 10 platform channels, reflecting that pki-core is shipped and serviced across those Red Hat product lines rather than being tied to a single OS release.

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  • Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources

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Severity by source

Vendor (redhat) PRIMARY 8.1 HIGH
AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
vuln.today AI 8.1 HIGH

Network-reachable EST endpoint (AV:N), trivial fail-open trigger (AC:L), requires an existing EST user account (PR:L, not PR:N), no UI; arbitrary-subject cert issuance gives C:H/I:H, no availability impact (A:N).

3.1 AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
4.0 AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Red Hat 8.1 HIGH

Primary rating from Vendor (redhat).

CVSS VectorVendor: redhat

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

DescriptionCVE.org

A flaw was found in Dogtag PKI (pki-core). The CMCAuthForEST authentication plugin fails open when an EST fullcmc enrollment request is submitted via BasicAuth without an end-user TLS client certificate. The SSL_CLIENT_CERT session attribute retains the EST subsystem's agent certificate, which causes downstream authorization checks to treat the request as agent-privileged. An authenticated EST user can exploit this to obtain CA-signed certificates with arbitrary subject names.

Executive ViewAI

Why It Matters

Red Hat Certificate System versions 9, 10, and 11, along with the open-source Dogtag PKI, contain a high-severity authorization bypass that allows any authenticated EST enrollment user to obtain CA-signed certificates with arbitrary subject names. This flaw undermines the integrity of the organization's public key infrastructure, enabling impersonation of users, servers, or code-signing identities, and could facilitate lateral movement or persistent access. No vendor-released patch identified at time of analysis, and exploitation requires only a low-privileged account, so leadership should prioritize interim mitigations and restrict EST enrollment until a fix is available.

Business Impact: High
Compensating Controls

No vendor patch available; implement interim mitigations: disable the CMCAuthForEST plugin if not operationally required; enforce TLS client certificate authentication for all EST enrollment; restrict EST enrollment to trusted networks or specific IP addresses; enable enhanced logging and monitoring for fullcmc requests over BasicAuth without client certificates; audit issued certificates for arbitrary subject names; and apply any Red Hat recommended workarounds.

Threat Intelligence Overview

EPSS Score
0.2%
Top 91% exploitable
Prevalence
Medium
enterprise PKI/CA software (Dogtag/RHCS), moderate deployment, not ubiquitous
Data Quality
6 sources
Confidence: High
EUVD NVD CVE.org EPSS Vulnrichment Vendor 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 HIGH
CISA KEV No
Public POC No
EPSS 0.2%
Patch available No
Active threat No
Deciding rule
HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9)
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
Scheduled
Exploitation
None
System Exposure· derived
Open
Automatable
No
Human Impact
High
Technical Impact
Total

Priority Score

40
Low Medium High Critical
KEV: 0
EPSS: 0
CVSS: +40
PoC: 0
Weaponized: 0
Threat intel: 0
Gov advisory: 0

Attack Technique

Authentication bypass attacks exploit flaws in the verification mechanisms that control access to systems and applications.

Affected Products (CPE)CVE.org

cpe:2.3:a:red_hat:red_hat_certificate_system_10:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:red_hat:red_hat_certificate_system_11:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:red_hat:red_hat_certificate_system_9:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:red_hat:red_hat_certificate_system_9:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:red_hat:red_hat_enterprise_linux_10:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:red_hat:red_hat_enterprise_linux_6:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:red_hat:red_hat_enterprise_linux_7:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:red_hat:red_hat_enterprise_linux_8:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:red_hat:red_hat_enterprise_linux_9:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
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Vendor StatusVendor

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