Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
This Rancher issue can let ordinary authenticated users change the application Catalog when the restricted-admin role is enabled. That can weaken governance over what catalog content is available, but the published CVSS data shows no confidentiality impact and only limited integrity and availability impact.
Executive priority
Treat as a scheduled remediation item, not an emergency, unless many untrusted Rancher users exist. Prioritize upgrades where Catalog integrity affects production application deployment paths.
Technical view
CVE-2021-4200 is a CWE-269 improper privilege management flaw in SUSE Rancher. Affected releases are Rancher versions prior to 2.5.13 and prior to 2.6.4. With restricted-admin enabled, any user may receive write access to the Catalog. CVSS 3.1 score is 5.4 with network access and low privileges required.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely in SUSE Rancher environments running versions before 2.5.13 or before 2.6.4 where restricted-admin is enabled and non-admin users have accounts.
Exploitation context
The source bundle does not show CISA KEV listing or active exploitation. The CVSS vector indicates an authenticated network user with low privileges could trigger the issue without user interaction.
Researcher notes
The evidence is concise: affected versions, condition, CWE, and CVSS are provided, but no exploit detail or vendor workaround text is included in the bundle. Validate behavior through permission review rather than offensive reproduction.
Mitigation direction
- Upgrade affected Rancher 2.5 deployments to 2.5.13 or later.
- Upgrade affected Rancher 2.6 deployments to 2.6.4 or later.
- Review SUSE Rancher guidance before relying on temporary workarounds.
- Limit Rancher user access while remediation is pending.
- Monitor Catalog changes until upgraded.
Validation and detection
- Inventory Rancher versions across all clusters and management planes.
- Confirm whether restricted-admin is enabled in each Rancher deployment.
- Review Catalog permissions for non-admin users.
- Check audit or change history for unexpected Catalog writes.
- After upgrade, verify non-admin users cannot write Catalog entries.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-269: Authorization and privilege behavior lookup
Authorization weaknesses can support privilege escalation and valid-account review, depending on exploit path. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2021-4200 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Medium
- CVSS
- 5.4 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L2.82.5Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
5.4MediumVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1193992CVE reference · x_refsource_CONFIRM
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Improper Privilege Management
Improper Privilege Management represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.