Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
A tenant allowed to create Applications on an affected management hub may redirect deployments to managed clusters they should not control. Spoke-cluster ArgoCD could then apply attacker-controlled manifests, potentially enabling cluster takeover, sensitive-data access, service disruption, or movement across the managed environment.
Executive priority
Treat as an urgent access-control and patch-management issue for multicluster environments. Immediately determine whether untrusted tenants can create hub Applications, restrict that capability, and investigate unexpected spoke deployments. Prioritize vendor remediation once affected-version and fix information is confirmed.
Technical view
The multicloud-integrations Application propagation controller does not properly validate the ocm-managed-cluster annotation. This trust-boundary failure, categorized as CWE-441, lets a low-privileged hub tenant select arbitrary spoke clusters for ArgoCD synchronization. The supplied CVSS 3.1 score is 9.9 because exploitation may compromise confidentiality, integrity, and availability across security scopes.
Likely exposure
Potential exposure exists in Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2 environments using the affected multicloud-integrations-rhel9 component, pull-model propagation, and spoke-cluster ArgoCD. Practical exposure requires an identity permitted to create Application resources on the hub. The bundle does not identify affected version ranges, so installed versions must be checked against Red Hat guidance.
Exploitation context
The described attack is remotely reachable with low privileges, low complexity, and no user interaction, but it requires Application-creation permission on the hub. The bundle marks this CVE as absent from KEV and provides no evidence of public exploitation, exploit code, or observed attacks. Active exploitation should therefore not be claimed.
Researcher notes
The source bundle identifies the vulnerable trust decision and impact but omits affected version ranges, fixed releases, patch details, and detection indicators. Validate annotation authorization, controller behavior, tenant RBAC, and ArgoCD synchronization records defensively. Do not infer exposure from the product name alone or claim exploitation without additional evidence.
Mitigation direction
- Restrict hub Application creation permissions to trusted administrators until vendor guidance is applied.
- Suspend untrusted tenant access to hub Application creation where operationally feasible.
- Review Red Hat guidance for affected versions, patches, and supported mitigations.
- Apply the vendor-provided update or mitigation after confirming applicability and operational impact.
Validation and detection
- Inventory Advanced Cluster Management 2 deployments and installed multicloud-integrations-rhel9 package versions.
- Identify tenants and service accounts permitted to create Application resources on hub clusters.
- Audit Application resources for unexpected ocm-managed-cluster annotations or spoke targets.
- Review spoke ArgoCD synchronization history for unapproved manifests, privilege changes, or code execution.
- Compare installed versions with Red Hat's advisory when detailed version guidance is available.
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-441: 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 lookupExecution behavior lookup
The CVE wording references code or command execution, so execution technique review may help defensive triage. This is a Glexia inferred lookup path, not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, or CVE Program mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupPrivilege behavior lookup
The CVE wording references privilege impact, so privilege escalation and authorization behavior review may help. This is a Glexia inferred lookup path, not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, or CVE Program mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupContainer behavior lookup
The affected technology mentions containers, so container-specific ATT&CK technique review may help. This is a Glexia inferred lookup path, not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, or CVE Program mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2026-72526 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
- Critical
- CVSS
- 9.9 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
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.
SSVC decision data
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:C/C:H/I:H/A:H3.16redhatVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
9.9CriticalVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Vulnerability timeline
Timeline events are normalized from CVE metadata, CNA source timelines, ADP timelines, and KEV metadata when present.
- Source timelineredhat
Reported to Red Hat.
- Source timelineredhat
Made public.
- CVE reservedCVE Program
The CVE ID was reserved by the assigning CNA.
- CVE publishedCVE Program
The CVE record was published.
- CVE updatedCVE Program
The CVE record metadata indicates this as the latest update time.
ADP provider summaries
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-72526CVE reference, redhat · vdb-entry, x_refsource_REDHAT
- RHBZ#2514227CVE reference, redhat · issue-tracking, x_refsource_REDHAT
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.
Unintended Proxy or Intermediary ('Confused Deputy')
Unintended Proxy or Intermediary ('Confused Deputy') represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.