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🛡️ CVE-2021-25318 — rancher

🟠 CVSS 8.0 — High ✅ No Known Exploit CWE-732 OSV
8.0
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

Rancher does not properly specify ApiGroup when creating Kubernetes RBAC resources

A vulnerability was discovered in Rancher versions 2.0 through the aforementioned fixed versions, where users were granted access to resources regardless of the resource's API group. For example Rancher should have allowed users access to apps.catalog.cattle.io, but instead incorrectly gave access to apps.*. Resource affected include:

Downstream clusters:

apiservices

clusters

clusterrepos

persistentvolumes

storageclasses

Rancher management cluster

apprevisions

apps

catalogtemplates

catalogtemplateversions

clusteralertgroups

clusteralertrules

clustercatalogs

clusterloggings

clustermonitorgraphs

clusterregistrationtokens

clusterroletemplatebindings

clusterscans

etcdbackups

nodepools

nodes

notifiers

pipelineexecutions

pipelines

pipelinesettings

podsecuritypolicytemplateprojectbindings

projectalertgroups

projectalertrules

projectcatalogs

projectloggings

projectmonitorgraphs

projectroletemplatebindings

projects

secrets

sourcecodeproviderconfigs

There is not a direct mitigation besides upgrading to the patched Rancher versions.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached over the network, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs low-level privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. Rated impact: confidentiality high, integrity high, availability high.

CVSS metrics in full

The score comes from this vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

  • Attack vector: Network — reachable from anywhere that can route to the service.
  • Attack complexity: Low — the attack works reliably, with no preparation.
  • Attack requirements: None — no deployment-specific condition has to hold.
  • Privileges required: Low — an ordinary user account is enough.
  • User interaction: None — nobody has to be tricked into anything.
  • Confidentiality impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.
  • Integrity impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.
  • Availability impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.

Weakness class

CVE-2021-25318 is classified as CWE-732: Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource. A sensitive resource is assigned permissions that let unintended actors read or modify it.

Affected software

CVE-2021-25318 is recorded against 1 package.

  • github.com/rancher/rancher

Timeline and source

Published on 24 April 2024 and last revised on 10 July 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from OSV.

References

nvd.nist.gov (Advisory)
github.com (Web)
bugzilla.suse.com (Web)
github.com (Package)
pkg.go.dev (Web)

Other advisories for this package

github.com/rancher/rancher has other advisories on record. If you are patching this one, these are worth checking on the same host:

Same weakness in other software

These advisories are the same class of weakness (CWE-732: Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource) in other software:

Details

Severity HIGH
CVSS Score 8.0
CVSS Vector CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CWE CWE-732
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source OSV
Published 2024-04-24
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2026-07-10
Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
github.com/rancher/rancher — —

Similar Threats

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ⓘ Data Notice: The information presented above has been compiled from publicly available internet sources. Boteraser aggregates this data solely for informational purposes and does not independently classify, evaluate, or endorse any findings about the vulnerabilities listed. The accuracy and completeness of this information is the sole responsibility of the original publishers. Boteraser and its operators accept no liability for any decisions made based on this data.

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