Privileged service impersonation via realm-unaware uniqueness check
Published Aug 20, 2026 · Updated Aug 20, 2026
Privilege escalation in FreeIPA in Red Hat Enterprise Linux allows remote authenticated users to impersonate privileged services via LDAP writes. The 389-ds uniqueness constraint for Kerberos principal names does not treat equivalent realm forms as the same principal, so a new service entry can set krbCanonicalName to an existing privileged identity and bypass the intended uniqueness check. Exploitation requires LDAP write rights such as a computer account or another principal allowed to add service objects, and it yields unauthorized Kerberos service tickets that can enable domain compromise.
Summary
What happened
Privilege escalation in FreeIPA in Red Hat Enterprise Linux allows remote authenticated users to impersonate privileged services via LDAP writes. The 389-ds uniqueness constraint for Kerberos principal names does not treat equivalent realm forms as the same principal, so a new service entry can set krbCanonicalName to an existing privileged identity and bypass the intended uniqueness check. Exploitation requires LDAP write rights such as a computer account or another principal allowed to add service objects, and it yields unauthorized Kerberos service tickets that can enable domain compromise.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-13097
- Published
- Aug 20, 2026
- Updated
- Aug 20, 2026
- Vendor
- 389 Directory Server
- Product
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
- Classifications
- CWE-706, T1558
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Aug 20, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 20, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
Compare your product and version with the public record. A matching version still requires validation against your environment.
Is a vulnerable build present?
Affected versions are unavailable in this record. Check the vendor advisory for version and patch details.
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
See the directory against your own environment.
Your stack
Check the software in your environment
Book a demo to see how Hinoki identifies affected software and validates exploitability in your environment.
Book a demo