CVE-2026-41052: Rancher has Privilege Escalation from Project Owner to Host

Should you act?

Critical, preconditions apply

Severe if exploited, but exploitation needs conditions that may not apply to you. This signal is computed from CISA KEV, EPSS and CVSS data; it is not an editorial verdict.

• No confirmed exploitation. It is not in CISA’s KEV catalog and CISA’s SSVC assessment records no known exploitation. That can change quickly after a public write-up; re-check if you are affected.
• EPSS 0.4%, percentile 36: FIRST’s model estimates a 0.4% chance of exploitation activity in the next 30 days, higher than 36% of all scored CVEs (low). EPSS is a probability, not a verdict.
• Needs an account (high (admin)). Exposure depends on who can log in.
• Only applies if your dependency tree includes github.com/rancher/rancher (Go) >= 2.14.0, < 2.14.2, fixed in 2.14.2; github.com/rancher/rancher (Go) >= 2.13.0, < 2.13.6, fixed in 2.13.6; github.com/rancher/rancher (Go) >= 2.12.0, < 2.12.10, fixed in 2.12.10; github.com/rancher/rancher (Go) < 0.0.0-20260513182521-2800aaac25b5, fixed in 0.0.0-20260513182521-2800aaac25b5. Check your lockfile, including transitive dependencies.

What it is

Improper privilege handling could be used by users with Project Owner role to escalate privileges, in Rancher versions 2.14 before 2.14.2, 2.13 before 2.13.6, and 2.12 before 2.12.10.

From the GitHub advisory

Impact

A vulnerability has been identified in Rancher Manager that allows users assigned the Project Owner role to modify Pod Security Admission (PSA) labels on namespaces within their projects. Under the default role configuration, an attacker with the following access pattern can exploit this issue: 1. Cluster Access: The user is granted Cluster Member access. 2. Project Ownership: The user creates or is assigned ownership of a project. 3. Namespace Creation: The user creates a namespace within that project. 4. PSA Modification: The user modifies the namespace PSA configuration to use the privileged profile. 5. Privilege Escalation: The user deploys privileged workloads within the namespace.

As outlined in the Kubernetes Pod Security Standards documentation, privileged containers disable core Kubernetes security protections, allowing workloads to bypass standard container isolation boundaries. This can result in privilege escalation within the cluster environment.

Potential impacts include: - Deployment of privileged containers - Access to host-level resources - Container breakout - Cluster privilege escalation - Compromise of workloads running on affected nodes

Please refer to the associated MITRE ATT&CK techniques for further information about this category of attack: - Deploy Container - Escape to Host - Exploitation for Privilege Escalation

Weakness type: CWE-305.

Product: github.com/rancher/rancher (Go) · Assigned by: suse · Published: 2026-06-29

Affected and fixed versions

Severity scores

• Attack vector: network (remotely reachable)
• Attack complexity: low
• Attack requirements: none
• Privileges required: high (admin)
• User interaction: none

CVSS measures how bad a flaw is if exploited, not how likely exploitation is. Read it next to the exploitation data below.

Exploitation and urgency

• CISA KEV: not listed (no confirmed in-the-wild exploitation known to CISA).
• CISA SSVC assessment: exploitation none, automatable no, technical impact total.
• FIRST EPSS (model of 2026-10-21): 0.42% probability of exploitation activity in the next 30 days; percentile 36.

Timeline

• 2026-06-29 — CVE record published by suse
• 2026-06-30 — CVE record last updated
• 2026-07-01 — GitHub-reviewed advisory GHSA-vx8h-4prv-g744 published (critical)

Sources and references

Original sources first. Version and fix details should always be confirmed against the vendor or project advisory.

Vendor and project advisories, patches

1. github.com github.com

Vulnerability records

1. GitHub Advisory GHSA-vx8h-4prv-g744 github.com
2. CVE.org record CVE-2026-41052 cve.org
3. NVD entry CVE-2026-41052 nvd.nist.gov

Other references from the CVE record and advisory

1. github.com github.com
2. github.com github.com

Critical Go advisories · Today’s Security Digest