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CVE Record

CVE-2026-43000: An issue was discovered in OpenStack Keystone before 29.0.2.

An issue was discovered in OpenStack Keystone before 29.0.2. When combined with an application credential impersonation vulnerability, an attacker with the member role on a project can escalate to admin by chaining unrestricted application credentials with Keystone trusts. The impersonated token carries the victim's identity, which passes the trustor validation check. Keystone then validates the delegated roles against the victim's actual role assignments in the database, not the roles on the requesting token. This allows the attacker to create a trust delegating the victim's admin role to themselves. The trust persists independently, and additional trusts and application credentials can be created to maintain access. All actions are logged under the victim's identity.

HighCVSS 8.4Not KEV-listedUpdated
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Glexia's TakeAutomated analysishigh

Security readout for executives and security teams

Plain-English summary

A project member may combine two Keystone features to impersonate a more privileged user and grant themselves that user's admin role. The resulting access can persist through new trusts and credentials, while audit records misleadingly identify the victim. This creates substantial confidentiality and integrity risk for affected OpenStack environments.

Executive priority

Treat this as a high-priority identity-control issue. Accelerate patching where affected Keystone versions, application credentials, and trusts are present. The potential for admin escalation, durable persistence, and misleading attribution justifies urgent investigation, although the supplied sources do not establish active exploitation.

Technical view

Before Keystone 29.0.2, an impersonated token can satisfy trustor identity validation while delegated roles are checked against the victim's database assignments rather than the requesting token. A low-privileged project member can therefore chain unrestricted application credentials with trusts, delegate the victim's admin role, and establish persistent access.

Likely exposure

Keystone deployments earlier than 29.0.2 may be exposed when an attacker has a project member role and can perform the required application-credential and trust chain. Exact supported-release and distribution-package exposure is not fully established by the bundle; operators should confirm backport status with their vendor.

Exploitation context

The CVSS 3.1 score is 8.4: network-accessible, low privileges, no user interaction, high complexity, and changed scope. Successful exploitation can provide administrative access and persistence. The bundle states that this CVE is not in CISA KEV and provides no evidence of active exploitation.

Researcher notes

This is an authorization and privilege-management failure mapped to CWE-266 and CWE-863. The key mismatch is between token-carried authorization and database role validation during trust creation. Investigation should correlate trust creation, application credentials, and role changes because malicious actions may appear under the victim's identity.

Mitigation direction

  • Upgrade Keystone to 29.0.2 or a vendor package confirmed to contain the official fix.
  • Check OpenStack and distribution advisories for supported-branch backports and package-specific guidance.
  • Review and revoke suspicious or unnecessary Keystone trusts and application credentials.
  • Prioritize containment and credential review for identities holding administrative roles.
  • Preserve relevant Keystone audit records before remediation or credential revocation.

Validation and detection

  • Inventory Keystone versions and package revisions across every control-plane node.
  • Confirm the installed package explicitly addresses CVE-2026-43000.
  • Enumerate trusts and application credentials associated with privileged identities.
  • Review trust and credential creation activity, accounting for events attributed to impersonated victims.
  • Verify privileged role assignments and remove unauthorized persistent access paths.
Prepared
Confidence
high
Sources
5

Public sources used

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.

Potential ATT&CK relevance

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 · low confidence lookup

CWE-266: Exact CWE lookup

Use the exact CWE identifier as the starting point before reviewing related ATT&CK behavior. 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 lookup
cwe · medium confidence lookup

CWE-863: 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 lookup
description · low confidence lookup

Credential and access behavior lookup

The CVE wording references authentication or credential exposure, so valid-account and credential-access review may help. This is a Glexia inferred lookup path, not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, or CVE Program mapping.

Open ATT&CK lookup
description · low confidence lookup

Database behavior lookup

The CVE wording references database injection or access, so collection and exfiltration review may help. This is a Glexia inferred lookup path, not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, or CVE Program mapping.

Open ATT&CK lookup
cve · low confidence lookup

CVE-2026-43000 mapping review

Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.

Open ATT&CK lookup
Vulnerability profileCVE Program record
Severity
High
CVSS
8.4 (3.1)
Known Exploited
No
Published

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

Official CVE source material

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.

2CVSS vectors
5Timeline events
2ADP providers
6Source links

SSVC decision data

CISA-ADPCISA Coordinator
Timestamp
Version
2.0.3
Exploitation: noneAutomatable: noTechnical Impact: partial

CVSS vector scores

2 official scores

We 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.

ScoreVersionSeverityVectorExploitImpactSource
8.4CVSS 3.1HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:L1.86redhat-SADP
6CVSS 3.1MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:L1.83.7mitre

Vulnerability scoring details

Base CVSS 3.1 score

8.4High
CVSS 3.1 vector shape for CVE-2026-43000Attack VectorAttack ComplexityPrivileges RequiredUser InteractionScopeConfidentiality ImpactIntegrity ImpactAvailability Impact

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

Attack Vector
NetworkAdjacentLocalPhysical
Attack Complexity
LowHigh
Privileges Required
NoneLowHigh
User Interaction
NoneRequired
Scope
ChangedUnchanged
Confidentiality Impact
HighLowNone
Integrity Impact
HighLowNone
Availability Impact
HighLowNone

Vulnerability timeline

Timeline events are normalized from CVE metadata, CNA source timelines, ADP timelines, and KEV metadata when present.

  1. CVE reservedCVE Program

    The CVE ID was reserved by the assigning CNA.

  2. ADP timelineredhat-SADP

    Made public.

  3. CVE publishedCVE Program

    The CVE record was published.

  4. ADP timelineredhat-SADP

    Reported to Red Hat.

  5. CVE updatedCVE Program

    The CVE record metadata indicates this as the latest update time.

ADP provider summaries

CISA-ADPCISA ADP Vulnrichment
other:ssvc
redhat-SADPkeystone: OpenStack Keystone: Privilege escalation via chained application credential impersonation and trust misuse
other:Red Hat severity ratingcvssV3_1
  • 2026-05-28T19:01:11.777Z: Reported to Red Hat.
  • 2026-05-28T00:00:00.000Z: Made public.

Source materials

Affected products

Products and packages named in the record

VendorProductVersion / packageStatus
OpenStackKeystone14.0.0, 28.0.0, 29.0.0unaffected
Weakness

CWE details

CWE-266CWE-863

CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.

CWE-266 · source CWE mapping

Incorrect Privilege Assignment

Incorrect Privilege Assignment represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.

Open CWE intelligenceSame-CWE CVEs
CWE-863 · source CWE mapping

Incorrect Authorization

Incorrect Authorization represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.

Open CWE intelligenceSame-CWE CVEs