GHSA-vx8h-4prv-g744 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.4) CWE-305 vulnerability in github.com/rancher/rancher. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-vx8h-4prv-g744 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Rancher has Privilege Escalation from Project Owner to Host
Real-World Exposure
github.com/rancher/rancher🐹github.com/rancher/rancher🐹github.com/rancher/rancher🐹github.com/rancher/rancherReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
A vulnerability has been identified in Rancher Manager that allows users assigned the Project Owner role to modify Pod Security Admission (PSA) labels on namespaces within their projects. Under the default role configuration, an attacker with the following access pattern can exploit this issue:
- Cluster Access: The user is granted Cluster Member access.
- Project Ownership: The user creates or is assigned ownership of a project.
- Namespace Creation: The user creates a namespace within that project.
- PSA Modification: The user modifies the namespace PSA configuration to use the privileged profile.
- Privilege Escalation: The user deploys privileged workloads within the namespace.
As outlined in the Kubernetes Pod Security Standards documentation, privileged containers disable core Kubernetes security protections, allowing workloads to bypass standard container isolation boundaries. This can result in privilege escalation within the cluster environment.
Potential impacts include:
- Deployment of privileged containers
- Access to host-level resources
- Container breakout
- Cluster privilege escalation
- Compromise of workloads running on affected nodes
Please refer to the associated MITRE ATT&CK techniques for further information about this category of attack:
Reference: Kubernetes Pod Security Standards — Privileged Profile
Patches
This vulnerability is resolved by modifying the project-owner role to explicitly define the allowed verbs for projects resources instead of using the wildcard (*) permission.
The updated role configuration removes access to the updatepsa verb. This prevents project owners from modifying PSA settings in a manner that could enable privilege escalation.
Patched versions of Rancher include releases v2.12.10, v2.13.6, and v2.14.2.
Workarounds
If upgrading is not immediately possible, administrators should create a custom project role based on the existing Project Owner role, while removing unrestricted wildcard permissions for project resources.
The allowed verbs for projects should be restricted to: “get, update, delete, patch, create, list, watch, deletecollection” instead of “*”.
This prevents access to the updatepsa capability that enables the privilege escalation path.
References
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
- Reach out to the SUSE Rancher Security team for security related inquiries.
- Open an issue in the Rancher repository.
- Verify with our support matrix and product support lifecycle.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/rancher/rancher | ≥ 2.14.0&&< 2.14.2 | 2.14.2 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/rancher/rancher | ≥ 2.13.0&&< 2.13.6 | 2.13.6 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/rancher/rancher | ≥ 2.12.0&&< 2.12.10 | 2.12.10 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/rancher/rancher | all versions | 0.0.0-20260513182521-2800aaac25b5 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/rancher/rancher. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update github.com/rancher/rancher to 2.14.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-vx8h-4prv-g744 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether GHSA-vx8h-4prv-g744 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to GHSA-vx8h-4prv-g744. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-vx8h-4prv-g744 in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-vx8h-4prv-g744 across Go dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.