Rancher vulnerable to Privilege Escalation via manipulation of Secrets

Exploitation

No confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next marks exploitation only from CISA KEV.

CVSS 4.0

9.4 · CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H · score source

EPSS

• CVE-2023-22647: 0.71% estimated exploitation activity in the next 30 days; percentile 53.78 (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-03). This is a model estimate, not proof of exploitation or customer exposure.

As published by the source; long descriptions are shortened.

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:…

Published by the source

6 Jun 2023, 02:00 UTC

Last modified by the source

9 Oct 2024, 19:27 UTC

Source last checked

26 Oct 2026, 15:05 UTC

1. Revision 1 · created · 26 Oct 2026

   Published from ghsa record GHSA-p976-h52c-26p6

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# Patch Next advisory brief: CVE-2023-22647

Advisory: Rancher vulnerable to Privilege Escalation via manipulation of Secrets
IDs: CVE-2023-22647, GHSA-p976-h52c-26p6
Record: https://patchnext.com/advisories/cve-2023-22647 (revision 1, source checked 26 Oct 2026, 15:05 UTC)
Inventory: none attached. This brief comes from a public page and does not say whether any deployment is affected.
Severity: Critical (CVSS 9.4)
Exploitation: no confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next confirms exploitation only from CISA KEV.
Vendor response: Vendor fix available; fixed versions by package: github.com/rancher/rancher 2.7.4, 2.6.13. A vendor fix does not mean a deployment is fixed.

## Affected components
- Go github.com/rancher/rancher: affected >= 2.6.0, < 2.6.13; >= 2.7.0, < 2.7.4; fixed in 2.6.13, 2.7.4

## Suggested inspection (read-only)
- Go github.com/rancher/rancher: check the installed version with your package manager.

## Supported action
Upgrade each affected component to a fixed version on its release line. For a transitive dependency, upgrade the parent package or add an override or constraint, then regenerate the lockfile. Redeploy every environment that ran an affected version.

## Required regression checks
- Run the test suite and a production build.
- Exercise the features that depend on github.com/rancher/rancher.
- Repeat the inspection and confirm that only fixed versions remain installed.

## Rollback considerations
- Keep the previous lockfile and deployment artifact. Rolling back reinstates the vulnerable version, so apply any documented mitigation while you fix forward.

## Unresolved questions
- Which deployments run an affected version?
- Exploitation status can change. Check again before lowering the priority.
- Mark the work resolved only after the fixed version is verified in production.

## Sources
- Verified: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-p976-h52c-26p6 (GitHub-reviewed advisory GHSA-p976-h52c-26p6 lists affected ranges: Go github.com/rancher/rancher >=2.6.0 =2.7.0 <2.7.4)

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