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Rancher: Restricted Administrator can change Administrator's passwords

Critical severity GitHub Reviewed Published Mar 31, 2025 in rancher/rancher • Updated Apr 11, 2025

Package

gomod github.com/rancher/rancher (Go)

Affected versions

>= 2.8.0, < 2.8.14
>= 2.9.0, < 2.9.8
>= 2.10.0, < 2.10.4

Patched versions

2.8.14
2.9.8
2.10.4

Description

Impact

A vulnerability has been identified within Rancher where a Restricted Administrator can change the password of Administrators and take over their accounts.

A Restricted Administrator should be not allowed to change the password of more privileged users unless it contains the Manage Users permissions.

Rancher deployments where the Restricted Administrator role is not being used are not affected by this CVE.
Please consult the associated MITRE ATT&CK - Technique - Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism for further information about this category of attack.

Patches

The fix introduces a few changes:

  1. If the user has a manage-users verb, the user is allowed to edit/delete users. That way the Manage Users built in role will still be able to edit ALL users.
  2. If the user doesn't have manage-users, just edit or delete, then there is a check to ensure that the User being edited only has rules equal to or less than the editor.

Patched versions include releases v2.8.14, v2.9.8, v2.10.4 and v2.11.0

Workarounds

Users are recommended to upgrade, as soon as possible, to a version of Rancher Manager that contains the fix.
If users can't upgrade, the following are recommended:

  1. Limit access to Rancher Restricted Admin only to trusted users.
  2. Downgrade Restricted Administrators to custom roles with limited permissions.

Credits

This issue was identified and reported by Xavier Duthil from OVHcloud.

References

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

References

@pdellamore pdellamore published to rancher/rancher Mar 31, 2025
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Apr 1, 2025
Reviewed Apr 1, 2025
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Apr 11, 2025
Last updated Apr 11, 2025

Severity

Critical

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
High
User interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS score

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

This score estimates the probability of this vulnerability being exploited within the next 30 days. Data provided by FIRST.
(16th percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2025-23391

GHSA ID

GHSA-8p83-cpfg-fj3g

Source code

Credits

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