Keystone Auth Plugin Priv Escalation before 29.0.2
CVE-2026-42998 Published on May 28, 2026
An issue was discovered in OpenStack Keystone before 29.0.2. The Keystone application credential authentication plugin does not verify that the user supplied in the authentication request matches the owner of the application credential. An attacker can authenticate with their own application credential ID and secret while specifying a different user's name and domain in the request body. Keystone issues a token attributed to the victim user. The impersonated token is project-scoped and carries the intersection of the application credential's roles and the victim's actual roles on the project. This enables audit evasion, reading the victim's credentials, and acting as the victim within shared projects.
Vulnerability Analysis
CVE-2026-42998 is exploitable with network access, and requires small amount of user privileges. This vulnerability is consided to have a high level of attack complexity. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to be low. considered to have a small impact on confidentiality and integrity and availability.
Weakness Type
What is an AuthZ Vulnerability?
The software performs an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action, but it does not correctly perform the check. This allows attackers to bypass intended access restrictions.
CVE-2026-42998 has been classified to as an AuthZ vulnerability or weakness.
Products Associated with CVE-2026-42998
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Affected Versions
OpenStack Keystone:- Version 14.0.0 and below 27.0.2 is affected.
- Version 28.0.0 and below 28.0.2 is affected.
- Version 29.0.0 and below 29.0.2 is affected.