Keycloak CIBA sub parameter injection leads to token substitution
CVE-2026-97174 Published on November 5, 2026
Keycloak-services: keycloak-services: ciba sub parameter injection causes attacker authentication to issue victim tokens
A flaw was found in the Client-Initiated Backchannel Authentication (CIBA) implementation of Keycloak. The CIBA endpoint fails to properly validate the sub parameter, allowing it to be stored as an additional request parameter. During the token issuance process, this injected value overwrites the legitimate subject identifier. This allows an attacker to authenticate as themselves but receive security tokens belonging to a different victim user, leading to unauthorized account access.
Vulnerability Analysis
CVE-2026-97174 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 have a high impact on confidentiality and integrity, and no impact on availability.
Timeline
Reported to Red Hat.
Made public. 43 days later.
Weakness Type
Improper Input Validation
The product receives input or data, but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the input has the properties that are required to process the data safely and correctly.
Products Associated with CVE-2026-97174
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