CVE
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 plaintext secret leak in gateway operator
- Exploited
- No known exploitation
- Fix
- See vendor advisory
- Who is exposed
- Not reported
- Last modified
- Whether it needs action now or is a reference record, by fixed rules, with why. Last checked is when cve.now last re-read it.What do these mean? →
- Reference
- Last checked
- FIRST's estimate of the chance attackers exploit it in the next 30 days, updated daily.What do these mean? →
- 0.17% · 6th percentile
- A 0-100 score for how much a CVE matters across the industry: exploitation, exposure, how widely the software is used, severity and whether a fix exists.What do these mean? →
- 25/100 · provisional
- Whether working attack code is public (Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei or GitHub). Public code makes attacks easier.What do these mean? →
- None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
Summary
The AAP Gateway Operator in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 copies a protected resource-server secret in plaintext into the AutomationController custom resource, where users who can read that resource but not the underlying Kubernetes Secret can see it. A remote attacker with low-privilege login could use the exposed value to impersonate a trusted Controller service and reach privileged service-index APIs.
Written by anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5 from the sources below. Verify against them.
Read the original description
A cleartext storage flaw was found in the AAP Gateway Operator. When reconciling an AutomationController, the operator reads the protected resource-server Secret (Secret/<aap-name>-resource-server, key controller_resource_server_secret) and copies its plaintext value into the generated AutomationController custom resource under spec.extra_settings (RESOURCE_SERVER.SECRET_KEY). Although the operator uses no_log to keep the value out of its own logs, serializing it into the custom resource exposes it to any principal able to read the AutomationController CR without permission to read the backing Kubernetes Secret, breaking the expected OpenShift RBAC separation between the two resources. The value may also propagate into Kubernetes API/etcd storage, GitOps and Argo diffs and history, rendered manifests, support bundles, and audit data. The resource-server secret is intended for trusted Gateway-to-Controller service authentication, and its disclosure may allow a user to impersonate a trusted Controller service and reach privileged service-index APIs.
cve.now Index
- Exploitation?/40Unknown. No CISA SSVC exploitation rating yet
- Exposure3/25Reachable over the network · Unknown: No advisory context yet
- Reach10/20Shipped in major Linux distributions
- Severity6.5/10CVSS 6.5
- No patch5/5No fixed version listed; see vendor advisory
What would change the score
- Would score about 80 if added to CISA KEV
- Would score about 75 if CISA's SSVC rates exploitation active
- Would score about 44 if advisories confirm default setups are exposed
Check your systems with an agent
Paste this into a coding or ops agent. It checks your systems read-only and reports a table per asset.
Check whether my systems are affected by CVE-2026-126643 (Aap-gateway-operator: resource-server secret exposed in plaintext in the automationcontroller custom resource), using the cve.now data below.
Rules: work read-only. Do not run exploit code, proof-of-concept scripts or scanners that send attack payloads, and do not change any configuration, package, image or deployment. Report findings only.
What cve.now has for CVE-2026-126643 (entry last updated 2026-11-12):
Affected:
- Red Hat Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2: version range not reported
- Red Hat Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2: version range not reported
- Red Hat Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2: version range not reported
- Red Hat Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2: version range not reported
Fixed versions: none listed yet.
Setup: unknown whether the bug needs a non-default feature or setting. Check the advisory.
CISA KEV: CVE-2026-126643 is not listed as of cve.now's last read.
This KEV status is for CVE-2026-126643 only. If you also check another CVE, look up its own KEV status; never assume it from this one.
How to check:
- Installed software: check what is actually running, not what a repo declares. Read the version from each host, container image and Kubernetes node (the binary's version output, the OS package database, image layers), and check whether the conditions above hold there. Distribution packages may carry a backported fix under an older version number; confirm against the distribution's own advisory.
Verify against the linked advisories before concluding, and cite the date you read each one:
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2571730
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-126643
Do not conclude an asset is unaffected unless you checked it and the evidence covers both its version and the conditions above. If you could not check something, mark it unknown and say what is missing.
Report a table with one row per asset and these columns: Asset | Version or build | Status (affected, fixed, not applicable, unknown) | Compensating controls | Exposure (internet-facing, internal, none) | Evidence | Next action.
Entry: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-126643
For follow-up questions, use the cve.now MCP server at https://mcp.cve.now/mcp (no authentication), for example execute with name cve.get and arguments {"id": "CVE-2026-126643"}.Timeline
- CVE published
- First seen by cve.now
Affected versions
- ansible-automation-platform-25/gateway-rhel8-operator
Version range not reported
- ansible-automation-platform-25/gateway-rhel9-operator
Version range not reported
- ansible-automation-platform-26/gateway-rhel9-operator
Version range not reported
- ansible-automation-platform-27/gateway-rhel9-operator
Version range not reported
Evidence 4
CVE record · 2
Establishes: The identifier and description.
- Record
- Record
Write-ups · 1
Establishes: Technical detail and context.
- Report
Other links · 1
- Link
Corrections
None so far.
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