CVE-2026-55997

8.8 HIGHpublic exploit available

Published 2026-08-05 · Updated 2026-08-06

AI risk analysis

Summary: The flaw allows a malicious user to obtain long-lived registration tokens in plaintext, enabling unauthorized node registration and potential cluster compromise.
Exploitability: Exploitation is relatively easy given access to the Rancher API or file system; preconditions include having obtained a token through one of the disclosed methods.
Blast radius: If exploited, this could lead to significant damage, including unauthorized control over the entire downstream cluster and potential data breaches.
Prioritized remediation: Implement token expiration for registration tokens immediately to mitigate the risk.

auth-bypassapi-exploittoken-managementcluster-security

Analysis generated locally by qwen2.5:7b-instruct (no data left the box). AI-assisted — verify against primary sources before acting.

NVD description

Rancher issues long-lived registration tokens to authenticate nodes and agents joining a downstream cluster. These tokens were stored and exposed in plaintext with no expiration, so a malicious user could obtain one either through the Rancher API, etcd, stored automation, or direct file access on a node, and could use it at any time to register a rogue node into the cluster.

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Weaknesses

CWE-312

Public exploit & PoC references

https://github.com/rancher/rancher/security/advisories/GHSA-7r53-jvhg-9jq4

All references

Source data: NVD (nvd.nist.gov), public domain. Exploit-DB.ai adds local AI analysis for defensive use only.