CVE-2026-84706 — Red Hat
HIGHCVE-2026-84706 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.6) CWE-184 vulnerability. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
A flaw was found in Ansible Automation Platform's automation-controller. The custom Credential Type environment-variable injector validates variable names against a deny-list (an ANSIBLE_*…
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-2026-84706 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 378,156 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 Ansible Automation Platform's automation-controller. The custom Credential Type environment-variable injector validates variable names against a deny-list (an ANSIBLE_* prefix check plus a fixed ENV_BLOCKLIST) that omits process-hijacking loader variables such as BASH_ENV, ENV, LD_PRELOAD, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, PYTHONSTARTUP and GIT_SSH_COMMAND. Combined with the credential file injector, a privileged user can write an attacker-controlled script into the execution environment and point BASH_ENV at it, obtaining arbitrary code execution inside the execution-environment container for any job that attaches a credential of that type.
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 remote code execution 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-2026-84706 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-2026-84706. O3's runtime protection blocks the cwe-184 flaw at execution, which holds the line on hosts you cannot patch immediately.
How O3 protects you
O3 detects and blocks CVE-2026-84706 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-2026-84706. 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 requires a highly privileged actor. Creating or modifying a custom Credential Type requires Controller superuser; an organization Credential Admin can weaponize a pre-existing malicious custom type by supplying its input. Managed credential types cannot be edited and are unaffected. The control that is…
| 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-2026-84706 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2026-84706 across dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.