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CVE-2023-22647

Rancher vulnerable to Privilege Escalation via manipulation of Secrets

9.9 CriticalFix available

An Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in SUSE Rancher allowed standard users to leverage their existing permissions to manipulate Kubernetes secrets in the local cluster, resulting in the secret being deleted, but their read-level permissions to the secret being preserved. When this operation was followed-up by other specially crafted commands, it could result in the user gaining access to tokens belonging to service accounts in the local cluster.

This issue affects Rancher: from >= 2.6.0 before < 2.6.13, from >= 2.7.0 before < 2.7.4.

Attack profile

How easy it is to exploit

Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges needed
Low
User interaction
None

What an attacker can affect

Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

Exploit likelihood

0.71%Up 0.7 points since Jun 2, 2023
90%50%10%1%

What each source reports

CVE List Score used 9.9

An Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in SUSE Rancher allowed standard users to leverage their existing permissions to manipulate Kubernetes secrets in the local cluster, resulting in the secret being deleted, but their read-level permissions to the secret being preserved. When this operation was followed-up by other specially crafted commands, it could result in the user gaining access to tokens belonging to service accounts in the local cluster.

This issue affects Rancher: from >= 2.6.0 before < 2.6.13, from >= 2.7.0 before < 2.7.4.

Record
CVE-2023-22647
CVSS 3.1
9.9 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness
CWE-267
Updated
2026-11-02
EUVDEUVD-2023-1854 9.9

An Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in SUSE Rancher allowed standard users to leverage their existing permissions to manipulate Kubernetes secrets in the local cluster, resulting in the secret being deleted, but their read-level permissions to the secret being preserved. When this operation was followed-up by other specially crafted commands, it could result in the user gaining access to tokens belonging to service accounts in the local cluster.

This issue affects Rancher: from >= 2.6.0 before < 2.6.13, from >= 2.7.0 before < 2.7.4.

Record
EUVD-2023-1854
CVSS 3.1
9.9 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Updated
2026-11-03
GitHub AdvisoriesGHSA-p976-h52c-26p6 9.4

Rancher vulnerable to Privilege Escalation via manipulation of Secrets

Impact

A vulnerability has been identified which enables Standard users or above to elevate their permissions to Administrator in the local cluster.

The local cluster means the cluster where Rancher is installed. It is named local inside the list of clusters in the Rancher UI.

Standard users could leverage their existing permissions to manipulate Kubernetes secrets in the local cluster, resulting in the secret being deleted, but their read-level permissions to the secret being preserved. When this operation was followed-up by other specially crafted commands, it could result in the user gaining access to tokens belonging to service accounts in the local cluster.

Users that have custom global roles which grant create and delete permissions on secrets would also be able to exploit this vulnerability.

Users with audit logs enabled in Rancher can try to identify possible abuses of this issue by going through the logs. To sieve through the data filter by kind: Secret with type: provisioning.cattle.io/cloud-credential, then investigate all log entries that affect that specific resource. A secondary check would be to filter by all operations with Opaque Secrets within the cattle-global-data namespace.

After patching, it is recommended that users review access methods to Rancher (including RBAC policies, tokens, and host-level node access), to ensure that no changes were made to persist access to users who have leveraged this vulnerability.

Patches

Patched versions include releases 2.6.13, 2.7.4 and later versions.

Workarounds

There is no direct mitigation besides updating Rancher to a patched version.

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

Record
GHSA-p976-h52c-26p6
CVSS 4.0
9.4 CriticalCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H
CVSS 3.1
9.9 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness
CWE-267, CWE-269
Updated
2026-11-02
NVD 9.9

An Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in SUSE Rancher allowed standard users to leverage their existing permissions to manipulate Kubernetes secrets in the local cluster, resulting in the secret being deleted, but their read-level permissions to the secret being preserved. When this operation was followed-up by other specially crafted commands, it could result in the user gaining access to tokens belonging to service accounts in the local cluster.

This issue affects Rancher: from >= 2.6.0 before < 2.6.13, from >= 2.7.0 before < 2.7.4.

Record
CVE-2023-22647
CVSS 3.1
9.9 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS 3.1
8.0 HighCVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness
CWE-267
Updated
2026-11-02
OSV 9.9

An Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in SUSE Rancher allowed standard users to leverage their existing permissions to manipulate Kubernetes secrets in the local cluster, resulting in the secret being deleted, but their read-level permissions to the secret being preserved. When this operation was followed-up by other specially crafted commands, it could result in the user gaining access to tokens belonging to service accounts in the local cluster.

This issue affects Rancher: from >= 2.6.0 before < 2.6.13, from >= 2.7.0 before < 2.7.4.

Record
CVE-2023-22647
CVSS 3.1
9.9 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness
CWE-267
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVGHSA-p976-h52c-26p6 9.4

Rancher vulnerable to Privilege Escalation via manipulation of Secrets

Impact

A vulnerability has been identified which enables Standard users or above to elevate their permissions to Administrator in the local cluster.

The local cluster means the cluster where Rancher is installed. It is named local inside the list of clusters in the Rancher UI.

Standard users could leverage their existing permissions to manipulate Kubernetes secrets in the local cluster, resulting in the secret being deleted, but their read-level permissions to the secret being preserved. When this operation was followed-up by other specially crafted commands, it could result in the user gaining access to tokens belonging to service accounts in the local cluster.

Users that have custom global roles which grant create and delete permissions on secrets would also be able to exploit this vulnerability.

Users with audit logs enabled in Rancher can try to identify possible abuses of this issue by going through the logs. To sieve through the data filter by kind: Secret with type: provisioning.cattle.io/cloud-credential, then investigate all log entries that affect that specific resource. A secondary check would be to filter by all operations with Opaque Secrets within the cattle-global-data namespace.

After patching, it is recommended that users review access methods to Rancher (including RBAC policies, tokens, and host-level node access), to ensure that no changes were made to persist access to users who have leveraged this vulnerability.

Patches

Patched versions include releases 2.6.13, 2.7.4 and later versions.

Workarounds

There is no direct mitigation besides updating Rancher to a patched version.

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

Record
GHSA-p976-h52c-26p6
CVSS 4.0
9.4 CriticalCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H
CVSS 3.1
9.9 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness
CWE-267, CWE-269
Updated
2026-11-02

Affected products

Affected packages

Affected packages
PackageAffectedFixed
github.com/rancher/rancher
Go
2.6.0 up to 2.6.13
2.6.13
github.com/rancher/rancher
Go
2.7.0 up to 2.7.4
2.7.4

History

History
RecordedChangedSources
aliases, publishedEUVD
first indexedCVE List, GitHub Advisories, NVD, OSV

Dates are when Every CVE recorded each change. Upstream dates may differ.

In short

CVE-2023-22647 is a critical vulnerability (CVSS 9.9) in Suse Rancher, published June 1, 2023. No source lists public exploit code. EPSS puts the chance of exploitation in the next 30 days at 0.71%, the 54th percentile. Fixed in github.com/rancher/rancher 2.6.13.

References

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