CVE-2026-78234

Hawtio-operator: hawtio-operator: service-ca signing oracle allows arbitrary-cn certificate issuance to namespace edit users

Published Sep 8, 2026 CVSS 3.1 · 9.9 Critical EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
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.

Remediation

Vendor Workaround

Do not set spec.routeHostName to values outside the operator's own namespace service names. Restrict which users can create or modify Hawtio custom resources via RBAC. Audit existing Hawtio CR instances for unexpected routeHostName values and rotate any TLS certificates that may have been issued with incorrect Common Names.

Tracking

Sign in to view the affected projects.

Advisories

No advisories available
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Redhat build Of Apache Camel - Hawtio
Vendors & Products Redhat build Of Apache Camel - Hawtio
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'total'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
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.
Title Hawtio-operator: hawtio-operator: service-ca signing oracle allows arbitrary-cn certificate issuance to namespace edit users
First Time appeared Redhat
Redhat apache Camel Hawtio
Weaknesses CWE-295
CPEs cpe:/a:redhat:apache_camel_hawtio:4
Vendors & Products Redhat
Redhat apache Camel Hawtio
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 9.9, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
redhat
Published
Updated
Sep 8, 2026, 5:14 PM
Reserved
Aug 27, 2026, 10:25 AM
Status
Awaiting Analysis
Published
Sep 8, 2026, 12:16 PM
Modified
Sep 8, 2026, 7:08 PM
Severity
Important
Public date
Sep 8, 2026, 10:55 AM