Rancher Remote Code Execution via Cluster/Node Drivers

Exploitation

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

CVSS

9.1 · CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS

• CVE-2024-22036: 0.80% estimated exploitation activity in the next 30 days; percentile 56.81 (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 within Rancher where a cluster or node driver can be used to escape the chroot jail and gain root access to the Rancher container itself. In production environments, further privilege escalation is possible based on living off the land within the Rancher container itself. For the test and development environments, based on a –privileged Docker container, it is possible to escape the Docker container and gain execution access on the host system. This happens because: - During startup, Rancher appends the /opt/drivers/management-state/bin directory to the PATH environment variable. - In Rancher, the binaries /usr/bin/rancher-machine, /usr/bin/helmv3, and /usr/bin/kustomize are assigned a UID of 1001 and a GID of 127 instead of being owned by the root user. - Rancher employs a jail mechanism to isolate the execution of node drivers from the main process. However, the drivers are executed with excessive permissions. - During the registration of…

Published by the source

25 Oct 2024, 19:37 UTC

Last modified by the source

16 Apr 2025, 13:17 UTC

Source last checked

26 Oct 2026, 15:09 UTC

1. Revision 1 · created · 26 Oct 2026

   Published from ghsa record GHSA-h99m-6755-rgwc

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# Patch Next advisory brief: CVE-2024-22036

Advisory: Rancher Remote Code Execution via Cluster/Node Drivers
IDs: CVE-2024-22036, GHSA-h99m-6755-rgwc
Record: https://patchnext.com/advisories/cve-2024-22036 (revision 1, source checked 26 Oct 2026, 15:09 UTC)
Inventory: none attached. This brief comes from a public page and does not say whether any deployment is affected.
Severity: Critical (CVSS 9.1)
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 2.9.3, 2.8.9, 2.7.16. A vendor fix does not mean a deployment is fixed.

## Affected components
- Go github.com/rancher/rancher: affected >= 2.7.0, < 2.7.16; >= 2.8.0, < 2.8.9; >= 2.9.0, < 2.9.3; fixed in 2.9.3, 2.8.9, 2.7.16

## 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-h99m-6755-rgwc (GitHub-reviewed advisory GHSA-h99m-6755-rgwc lists affected ranges: Go github.com/rancher/rancher >=2.7.0 =2.8.0 =2.9.0 <2.9.3)

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