Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in FreeIPA Affecting Active Directory Users
CVE-2026-11861

9.6CRITICAL

Key Information:

Vendor

Red Hat
Status
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
Vendor
CVE Published:
20 August 2026

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.

References

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-11861
vdb-entryx_refsource_REDHAT
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2487472
issue-trackingx_refsource_REDHAT

CVSS V3.1

Score:
9.6
Severity:
CRITICAL
Confidentiality:
High
Integrity:
High
Availability:
High
Attack Vector:
Network
Attack Complexity:
Low
Privileges Required:
Low
User Interaction:
None
Scope:
Changed

Timeline

  • Vulnerability published

  • Vulnerability Reserved

Credit

Red Hat would like to thank Vladislav Plyatsok (rd01f) for reporting this issue.
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