---
id: CVE-2026-78234
title: A flaw was found in hawtio-operator
summary: >-
  A flaw was found in hawtio-operator. The operator reads the OpenShift Service
  CA private signing key from the openshift-service-ca namespace and uses it to
  mint client certificates with a Subject Common Name (CN) supplied by the
  author o…
severity: critical
cvss: 9.9
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H'
cwe:
  - CWE-295
vendor: Red Hat
product: rhbac-4/hawtio-gateway-rhel9
affected:
  - rhbac-4/hawtio-gateway-rhel9 (all versions)
  - rhbac-4/hawtio-operator-bundle (all versions)
  - rhbac-4/hawtio-rhel9 (all versions)
published: '2026-09-08'
updated: '2026-09-08'
sourceUpdated: '2026-09-08T19:08:15.590'
source: NVD
sourceUrl: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-78234'
references:
  - url: 'https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-78234'
    label: secalert@redhat.com
  - url: 'https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2524894'
    label: secalert@redhat.com
  - url: >-
      https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/2026/cve-2026-78234.json
  - url: 'https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-78234'
  - url: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-78234'
  - url: 'https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:66120'
tags:
  - nvd
  - cve.org
  - csaf
  - vex
  - red-hat
ssvc:
  exploitation: none
  automatable: 'no'
  technicalImpact: total
  timestamp: '2026-09-08T12:18:30.594248Z'
ingestedAt: '2026-09-08T15:33:26.983Z'
epss: 0.00388
epssPercentile: 0.30176
patched:
  - build_of_apache_camel_hawtio_4_4_for_rhel 9
---

## Overview

A flaw was found in hawtio-operator. The operator reads the OpenShift Service CA private signing key from the openshift-service-ca namespace and uses it to mint client certificates with a Subject Common Name (CN) supplied by the author of a namespaced Hawtio custom resource. Because the operator ships a ClusterRole that aggregates Hawtio CR permissions into the edit and admin roles, any user with edit access in any namespace can obtain a Service-CA-signed certificate with an arbitrary subject. This certificate can be used to impersonate any in-cluster service identity to peers that trust the Service CA for client authentication, including Jolokia agents and other Service-CA-trusting components.

## Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.

## Vendor advisories

- **Red Hat VEX** · Important · affected: Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4 · no fix planned: Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4 · updated 2026-09-10 · [vex](https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/2026/cve-2026-78234.json)
- **RHSA-2026:66120** · Red Hat · fixed in: Red Hat Build of Apache Camel HawtIO 4.4 for RHEL 9 · released 2026-09-09 · [advisory](https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:66120)