CVE-2026-93017: Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform: Excessive secret read rights in Insights Operator

Summary

The ClusterRole insights-operator-gather grants the Insights Operator service account get and list access to secrets in all namespaces, without restriction. An attacker who can create a pod that runs with this service account can read every secret in the cluster. Red Hat rates the issue with CVSS 7.7 (High), and the attack needs low privileges and network access to the cluster.

Affected

OpenShift Container Platform 4.12, 4.14 to 4.22 and 5 according to the CVE record (default: affected)
Exact affected and fixed builds are not confirmed here; the CVE record title also mentions nodes/proxy and cluster-reader permissions, which needs verification in the Red Hat advisory

Fixed in

RHSA-2026:82785 (OpenShift Container Platform 4.14.76) lists CVE-2026-93017 as fixed
RHSA-2026:82813 (OpenShift Container Platform 4.15.70) lists CVE-2026-93017 as fixed
Check the advisory for your minor version and apply the matching update

Workaround

Unknown. Red Hat states that no mitigation is available that meets its criteria for ease of use, applicability and stability.

Exploitation

No public exploitation known at the time of writing
CISA SSVC assessment: exploitation none, automatable no, technical impact partial

Our recommendation

Update OpenShift Container Platform to the fixed version listed in the RHSA for your minor version
Restrict who can create pods, especially in shared clusters, and audit RBAC bindings to the Insights Operator service account
If misuse cannot be ruled out, rotate the secrets in the cluster
Monitor audit logs for pods using the gather service account and for secret access from unexpected sources

Public exploits

PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit and Exploit-DB list nothing for this CVE.

Research sources

Red Hat CVE page CVE-2026-93017 access.redhat.com
RHSA-2026:82785 OpenShift Container Platform 4.14.76 access.redhat.com
RHSA-2026:82813 OpenShift Container Platform 4.15.70 access.redhat.com
Red Hat Bugzilla 2515741 bugzilla.redhat.com
Insights Operator upstream PR 1347 (scoping of secret access) github.com

Researched and written up in English and German by an AI (Claude by Anthropic) based on NVD, CISA, EPSS and the sources listed. The vendor information is authoritative. Researched on 2 Nov 2026, 08:58.

Original description (NVD)

The `insights-operator-gather` ClusterRole grants the operator's service account read access to secrets in the core API group with no namespace or resourceNames restriction — therefore, access to every secret in every namespace in the cluster. Ref: https://github.com/openshift/insights-operator/blob/8f15e3157ff09f54ab22801f5b21da35a195cc6d/manifests/03-clusterrole.yaml#L368-L373 ``` - apiGroups: - "" resources: - secrets verbs: - get - list ``` By spawning a pod with the gather service account mounted, an attacker will be able to access any secret in any namespace. ``` spec: serviceAccountName:"gather" ```

NVD references (11)

Sources

The tracker combines official, freely usable data sources – updated continuously:

NVD (NIST) – CVEs, rating (CVSS), affected products
CISA KEV – vulnerabilities confirmed by CISA as actively exploited
CISA Vulnrichment – CISA assessment (SSVC) in the official CVE record
FIRST EPSS – probability of exploitation
Microsoft MSRC – Patch Tuesday: vulnerabilities, severity, updates
PoC-in-GitHub – public proof-of-concept repositories
Metasploit (Rapid7) – modules of the Metasploit Framework
Exploit-DB (OffSec) – archive of public exploits (links only)
Patch days: official vendor pages (linked per vendor) (Vendor patch days)

Affected? We can help.

We check whether your systems are affected, install updates and close the gap – continuously with the System Health Checker if you wish.

Get in touch RSS feed