Realm-admin escalation via protected-role renaming
Published May 28, 2026 · Updated May 28, 2026
Privilege escalation in Red Hat build of Keycloak allows remote authenticated users with manage-clients to gain realm-admin access. The admin role rename endpoint accepts protected role names while assignment guards identify protected roles by name, and composites persist by entity ID. An administrator with manage-clients can rename a protected role, add it as a composite child, and restore its name, granting realm-wide privileges that survive permission revocation and reboots.
Summary
What happened
Privilege escalation in Red Hat build of Keycloak allows remote authenticated users with manage-clients to gain realm-admin access. The admin role rename endpoint accepts protected role names while assignment guards identify protected roles by name, and composites persist by entity ID. An administrator with manage-clients can rename a protected role, add it as a composite child, and restore its name, granting realm-wide privileges that survive permission revocation and reboots.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-9796
- Published
- May 28, 2026
- Updated
- May 28, 2026
- Vendor
- 389 Directory Server
- Product
- Red Hat build of Keycloak
- Classifications
- CWE-367, T1068
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- admin
Timeline
How it unfolded
- May 28, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- May 28, 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?
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
- Protected-role rename and composite-assignment reproductionproof of concept · demonstrated
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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