CVE-2026-12541 — Red Hat
HIGHCVE-2026-12541 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.2) OS Command Injection vulnerability. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
A flaw was found in Foreman. OS command injection vulnerabilities exist in the foreman-rake db:dump and db:import_dump tasks. The application fails to properly sanitize user-supplied…
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-12541.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-12541 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 381,682 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
A flaw was found in Foreman. OS command injection vulnerabilities exist in the foreman-rake db:dump and db:import_dump tasks. The application fails to properly sanitize user-supplied input in the destination parameter (during backups) and the file parameter (during imports) before passing them to a Ruby system() call for execution. An attacker with permissions to execute foreman-rake (e.g., via a restricted sudo configuration) can append malicious shell commands to the provided file paths.
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2026-12541 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
Successful exploitation of this issue allows a restricted user to escalate privileges to the foreman account and execute arbitrary commands. This grants control over the Satellite database and configurations, enabling lateral movement and full root remote code execution on all managed hosts.
Red Hat has investigated whether a possible mitigation exists for this issue, and has not been able to identify a practical example. Please update the affected package as soon as possible.Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2026-12541 (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Satellite 6.16 for RHEL 8 | foreman-0:3.12.0.23-1.el8sat | RHSA-2026:74506 |
| Red Hat Satellite 6.18 for RHEL 9 | foreman-0:3.16.0.25-1.el9sat | RHSA-2026:74504 |
| Red Hat Satellite 6.19 for RHEL 9 | foreman-0:3.18.0.14-1.el9sat | RHSA-2026:74503 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-12541 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.