CVE-2023-22651
Suse Rancher 2.6.0 – 2.7.2
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2023-22651 is a critical-severity Improper Privilege Management (CWE-269) vulnerability in Suse Rancher. Its CVSS base score is 9.9 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Services File Permissions Weakness (T1574.010); ranked in the top 45% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-1215
Vulnerability Data
Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in SUSE Rancher allows Privilege Escalation. A failure in the update logic of Rancher's admission Webhook may lead to the misconfiguration of the Webhook. This component enforces validation rules and security checks before resources are admitted…
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into the Kubernetes cluster. The issue only affects users that upgrade from 2.6.x or 2.7.x to 2.7.2. Users that did a fresh install of 2.7.2 (and did not follow an upgrade path) are not affected.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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- 7 hardening rules · 2 OS baselines
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Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Policy addresses roles, responsibilities, and privilege management to prevent improper privilege assignments.
Implements core proper privilege management by restricting to only required rights.
Baseline configuration documents and controls privilege assignments, making improper privilege management harder to introduce or sustain.
Requiring the most restrictive settings instead of defaults prevents incorrect default permissions on resources.
Defines roles and responsibilities to ensure proper privilege management during configuration changes.
Designates roles and review processes for managing physical privileges and access rights.
Tailoring explicitly overrides or scopes default permission assignments in the baseline to match the system's actual risk and operational needs.
Centralized privilege assignment and oversight prevent ad-hoc or excessive privilege grants that occur when each system is configured independently.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Lifecycle management can encompass permission settings, yet the control is too broad to specifically mitigate incorrect defaults.
Defining and enforcing least-privilege access permissions directly prevents overly permissive defaults at install time.
Hardened baselines and configuration management explicitly require correct default file permissions.
Secure SDLC practices include establishing secure defaults, but address only the development-phase portion of the weakness.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
A.5.15 directly mandates determining access requirements, defining/enforcing topic-specific access control policy, assigning rights/restrictions by entity/role, consistency with classification, need-to-know, privileged access restrictions, segregation, formal authorization, and dynamic rules — which stops most improper privilege management from being exploitable; bounded remainder is flawed implementation of those rules (e.g. incorrect mapping or enforcement bugs).
A.5.18 directly governs the provisioning, review, modification and timely revocation of access rights (including for role changes, termination and privilege levels), which stops most improper privilege spheres from being exploitable even if the assignment flaw exists; the bounded remainder is flaws in the underlying enforcement mechanism itself (e.g. AC-3/A.8.3)
Defining and communicating authorization levels for each role limits the assignment of excessive or unnecessary privileges.
Hardening callouts derived
Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (higher-evidence rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).
Windows Server 2016 (2 rules)
- V-224833 Permissions for program file directories must conform to minimum requirements. blocks CWE-276
- V-224834 Permissions for the Windows installation directory must conform to minimum requirements. blocks CWE-276
Windows Server 2019 (2 rules)
- V-205735 Windows Server 2019 permissions for program file directories must conform to minimum requirements. blocks CWE-276
- V-205736 Windows Server 2019 permissions for the Windows installation directory must conform to minimum requirements. blocks CWE-276