CVE-2026-84721 is a vulnerability in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
Published on September 23, 2026
Automation-controller: automation-controller: email notification backend allows ssrf via user-controlled smtp host/port (internal port-scan oracle, smtp password exfil)
A server-side request forgery flaw was found in the Ansible Automation Platform
automation-controller email notification backend. The email backend passes the user-supplied SMTP
host and port from a notification template directly to the SMTP client without validating that
the target is not an internal, loopback, link-local, or reserved address. An authenticated user
with organization notification-admin permission can create or modify an email notification
template pointing at an arbitrary internal address, trigger a test, and have the controller task
process open a raw TCP connection to that address. The resulting connection error is reflected
back through the notification record, providing a three-state internal port-scan oracle (open,
closed, filtered) over the control-plane's cluster network, including the in-cluster Kubernetes
API. When a shared organization template holds a stored SMTP password, redirecting the host can
also cause that credential to be transmitted to an attacker-controlled server.
Vulnerability Analysis
CVE-2026-84721 can be exploited with network access, and requires small amount of user privileges. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to have a small impact on confidentiality and integrity, and no impact on availability.
Timeline
Reported to Red Hat.
Made public. 21 days later.
Weakness Type
What is a SSRF Vulnerability?
The web server receives a URL or similar request from an upstream component and retrieves the contents of this URL, but it does not sufficiently ensure that the request is being sent to the expected destination. By providing URLs to unexpected hosts or ports, attackers can make it appear that the server is sending the request, possibly bypassing access controls such as firewalls that prevent the attackers from accessing the URLs directly. The server can be used as a proxy to conduct port scanning of hosts in internal networks, use other URLs such as that can access documents on the system (using file://), or use other protocols such as gopher:// or tftp://, which may provide greater control over the contents of requests.
CVE-2026-84721 has been classified to as a SSRF vulnerability or weakness.
Products Associated with CVE-2026-84721
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