Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in FreeIPA Affecting Active Directory Users

CVE-2026-11861

What is CVE-2026-11861?

A vulnerability exists in FreeIPA that enables authenticated Active Directory users to bypass authentication mechanisms. This is due to the lack of verification of Privilege Attribute Certificate (PAC) certificates when a trust relationship is established between FreeIPA and Active Directory. As a result, an Active Directory user can impersonate a client name in the Ticket Granting Service (TGS), potentially leading to unauthorized access to FreeIPA services including the portal, SMB server, and LDAP directory. This flaw poses risks of privilege escalation within the FreeIPA domain, as it may grant users elevated permissions without proper authorization checks.

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