Administrator access via unchecked service-account role update
Published Aug 17, 2026 · Updated Aug 18, 2026
Privilege escalation in SkyPilot 0.13.1rc1 and earlier allows remote authenticated users to gain administrator access via service-account role updates. The POST /users/service-account-tokens/update-role handler checks only whether the caller owns the token and then writes the requested role without verifying that the caller is an admin permitted to grant it. On multi-user API servers with service accounts enabled, any non-admin user can create a service account, promote it, and use its bearer token to administer all users and workspaces.
Summary
What happened
Privilege escalation in SkyPilot 0.13.1rc1 and earlier allows remote authenticated users to gain administrator access via service-account role updates. The POST /users/service-account-tokens/update-role handler checks only whether the caller owns the token and then writes the requested role without verifying that the caller is an admin permitted to grant it. On multi-user API servers with service accounts enabled, any non-admin user can create a service account, promote it, and use its bearer token to administer all users and workspaces.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-75481
- Published
- Aug 17, 2026
- Updated
- Aug 18, 2026
- Vendor
- SkyPilot
- Product
- SkyPilot
- Classifications
- CWE-269, T1098
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Aug 17, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 18, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=0 <=0.13.1rc1
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
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.
Public exploit references
- Privilege escalation to admin via service-account role update (missing admin check on update-role)proof of concept · demonstrated
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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