Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-37978

Access Control in Redhat Build Of Keycloak ≤ 26.4.12

Published
19 May 2026
Modified
17 June 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 4.9
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0040 32th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-37978 is a medium-severity Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key (CWE-639) vulnerability in Redhat Build Of Keycloak. Its CVSS base score is 4.9 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Account Discovery (T1087); ranked at the 32th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-4 (Information Flow Enforcement) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

A flaw was found in Keycloak. A low-privilege administrator with the 'view-clients' role can exploit this by invoking the 'evaluate-scopes' Admin API endpoints with an arbitrary user ID (userId) parameter. This vulnerability allows for cross-role personally identifiable information (PII) leakage,…

more

enabling unauthorized visibility into user identities and authorizations across the realm. Exploitation is possible remotely via network access to the Admin API.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1087 Account Discovery Discovery
Adversaries may attempt to get a listing of valid accounts, usernames, or email addresses on a system or within a compromised environment.
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
T1213 Data from Information Repositories Collection
Adversaries may leverage information repositories to mine valuable information.
Why these techniques?

Authz bypass in admin API enables remote exploitation of the app (T1190) and unauthorized account/user data access (T1087, T1213).

Confidence: MEDIUM · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-4630Same product: Redhat Build Of Keycloak
CVE-2026-9087Same product: Redhat Build Of Keycloak
CVE-2026-9099Same product: Redhat Build Of Keycloak
CVE-2026-9799Same product: Redhat Build Of Keycloak
CVE-2026-14209Same product: Redhat Build Of Keycloak
CVE-2026-4628Same product: Redhat Build Of Keycloak
CVE-2026-9792Same product: Redhat Build Of Keycloak
CVE-2026-9689Same product: Redhat Build Of Keycloak
CVE-2026-3911Same product: Redhat Build Of Keycloak
CVE-2026-37977Same product: Redhat Build Of Keycloak

Affected Assets

redhat
build of keycloak
≤ 26.4.12

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • AC-3 Access Enforcement
  • AC-6 Least Privilege
  • AC-4 Information Flow Enforcement
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

prevent

Directly enforces authorization decisions on Admin API endpoints so that the view-clients role cannot be used to supply an arbitrary userId to evaluate-scopes.

prevent

Ensures the view-clients role is granted only the minimum privileges required, preventing it from reaching cross-role user PII via evaluate-scopes.

prevent

Enforces information-flow rules that block unauthorized leakage of user identity and authorization attributes across realm boundaries.

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.

PR.AA-05 full match
prevents

Enforcing authorization policy and least privilege directly blocks user-controlled key tampering that bypasses access checks.

PR.IR-01 mostly match
prevents

Logical access controls prevent unauthorized data access that results from missing authorization checks on object references.

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.

detects

Security testing can detect missing authorization checks but does not prevent the weakness in production.

prevents

Information access restriction explicitly enforces that users may only retrieve data they are authorized to see, directly addressing user-controlled key bypass.

prevents

Access control policy directly requires enforcement of authorization rules that prevent unauthorized access via manipulated keys.

prevents

Managing access rights includes ensuring users can only access their own records and not bypass authorization by altering identifiers.

mitigates

Privileged access rights control restricts what data each user may access, mitigating direct object reference attacks.

prevents

Secure development lifecycle includes authorization design but does not itself implement runtime access checks.

References