CVE-2026-84691 — Red Hat
HIGHCVE-2026-84691 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.7) CWE-134 vulnerability. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
A flaw was found in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform's automation- controller. The setting that formats the log message emitted for API 4XX errors is an administrator-controlled…
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-2026-84691.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-84691 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 379,145 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Description
A flaw was found in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform's automation- controller. The setting that formats the log message emitted for API 4XX errors is an administrator-controlled Python format-string template that is rendered with a live user object as an argument. Because Python string formatting permits attribute and item traversal on its arguments, an administrator can craft a template that walks from the user object into the application settings and reads the Django secret key and the database password. The formatted message is written to a logger that can be forwarded to an external log aggregator, whose destination is also administrator-controlled, allowing the secrets to be sent off the host. An authenticated administrator can thereby obtain the master encryption key used to protect all stored credentials and the database service password, enabling offline decryption of every stored credential, forgery of user sessions, and direct access to the controller database.
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`). Because exploitation targets the running service rather than your application code, O3 also flags the exploit behaviour from runtime telemetry and egress traffic.
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2026-84691 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Reduce reachability while you patch: restrict network access to the service to trusted sources, disable or gate the affected component where your deployment allows it, and add a WAF/IPS signature if one exists for CVE-2026-84691. O3's runtime protection blocks the cwe-134 flaw at execution, which holds the line on hosts you cannot patch immediately.
How O3 protects you
O3 detects and blocks CVE-2026-84691 exploitation at runtime with eBPF exploit-chain detection, plus L7 egress monitoring that catches a post-exploitation callback and cuts the attacker's outbound channel.
Tailored to CVE-2026-84691. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
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.
This flaw affects automation-controller as shipped in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. Exploitation requires an authenticated System Administrator (superuser); the impact is disclosure of the Django SECRET_KEY and database credentials, enabling offline decryption of all stored credentials and session forgery.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.5 for RHEL 8 | automation-controller-0:4.6.33-1.el8ap | RHSA-2026:71114 |
| Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.6 for RHEL 9 | automation-controller-0:4.7.17-1.el9ap | RHSA-2026:71113 |
| Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.6 | ansible-automation-platform-26/controller-rhel9:1789673739 | RHSA-2026:71179 |
| Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.7 | ansible-automation-platform-27/controller-rhel9:1789580684 | RHSA-2026:71177 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-84691 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2026-84691 across dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.