Rancher has Privilege Escalation from Project Owner to Host

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:H/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H · score source

EPSS

• CVE-2026-41052: 0.42% estimated exploitation activity in the next 30 days; percentile 36.70 (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 in Rancher Manager that allows users assigned the Project Owner role to modify Pod Security Admission (PSA) labels on namespaces within their projects. Under the default role configuration, an attacker with the following access pattern can exploit this issue: 1. Cluster Access: The user is granted Cluster Member access. 2. Project Ownership: The user creates or is assigned ownership of a project. 3. Namespace Creation: The user creates a namespace within that project. 4. PSA Modification: The user modifies the namespace PSA configuration to use the privileged profile. 5. Privilege Escalation: The user deploys privileged workloads within the namespace. As outlined in the Kubernetes Pod Security Standards documentation, privileged containers disable core Kubernetes security protections, allowing workloads to bypass standard container isolation boundaries. This can result in privilege escalation within the cluster environment. Potential impacts…

Published by the source

1 Jul 2026, 20:57 UTC

Last modified by the source

1 Jul 2026, 20:57 UTC

Source last checked

26 Oct 2026, 15:24 UTC

1. Revision 1 · created · 26 Oct 2026

   Published from ghsa record GHSA-vx8h-4prv-g744

Preview the exact text before you copy it. Commands are read-only suggestions; review them before running anything.

# Patch Next advisory brief: CVE-2026-41052

Advisory: Rancher has Privilege Escalation from Project Owner to Host
IDs: CVE-2026-41052, GHSA-vx8h-4prv-g744
Record: https://patchnext.com/advisories/cve-2026-41052 (revision 1, source checked 26 Oct 2026, 15:24 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 2.14.2, 2.13.6, 2.12.10, 0.0.0-20260513182521-2800aaac25b5. A vendor fix does not mean a deployment is fixed.

## Affected components
- Go github.com/rancher/rancher: affected >= 2.14.0, < 2.14.2; >= 2.13.0, < 2.13.6; >= 2.12.0, < 2.12.10; < 0.0.0-20260513182521-2800aaac25b5; fixed in 0.0.0-20260513182521-2800aaac25b5, 2.14.2, 2.12.10, 2.13.6

## 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-vx8h-4prv-g744 (GitHub-reviewed advisory GHSA-vx8h-4prv-g744 lists affected ranges: Go github.com/rancher/rancher >=2.14.0 =2.13.0 =2.12.0 =0 <0.0.0-20260513182521-2800aaac25b5)

Commands are suggestions: review each one before running it.