CVE-2026-44945

What it is

A privilege escalation vulnerability exists in Rancher's impersonation middleware (pkg/auth/requests/impersonate.go). An authenticated Rancher user with the default user global role can gain full administrative access to the Rancher control plane and transitively to all downstream clusters it manages. This issue affects Rancher: from 2.11.0 before 2.11.16, from 2.12.0 before 2.12.12, from 2.13.0 before 2.13.8, and from 2.14.0 before 2.14.2.

At a glance

Exploitability

Can be exploited over the network with an admin-level account. High risk of data exposure, data tampering, service disruption.

Exploit odds

0.6% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days (EPSS).

Fix

A patch, advisory or fixed version is referenced. Upgrade or apply it.

Timeline

1. 2026-08-05 10:17 UTC PublishedDisclosed publicly on CVE.org and NVD
2. 2026-10-23 21:10 UTC Last updatedMost recent change to the record

Details

Published

2026-08-05 10:17 UTC

Last modified

2026-10-23 21:10 UTC

Exploit probability

0.6% · EPSS, next 30 days

Weakness

CWE-441

Record status

Awaiting Analysis

Attack profile CVSS 3.1 · 9.1

Attack vector

Network

Complexity

Low

Privileges needed

High

User interaction

None

Scope

Changed

Confidentiality

High

Integrity

High

Availability

High