Live Exposure Defense: From CVE to Confirmed Exposure in 12 Hours – See more

Back
New CVE Detected

CVE-2026-12382 – mTLS Authentication Bypass via Header Spoofing – Red Hat Ansible Automation Plat…

Be the first to know when new zero-days emerge:

Subscribe to Email Alerts
Subscribe to RSS Feed

Summary

CVE-2026-12382 is a high-severity authentication bypass vulnerability (CWE-290: Authentication Bypass by Spoofing) in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 (AAP), affecting the automation-gateway component’s Envoy proxy configuration. A misconfiguration in the non-mTLS route to Event-Driven Ansible (EDA) event streams allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to spoof a trusted client identity and inject arbitrary events into protected EDA event streams. The vulnerability carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 8.2 (High).

Technical details

  • Root cause: The non-mTLS route in the AAP Gateway’s Envoy proxy does not apply the requestHeadersToRemove: ["Subject"] directive to incoming requests. Although this header-stripping rule is declared in the source code, it is absent from the live xDS configuration delivered to the Envoy process, leaving the control ineffective.
  • Trigger conditions: An attacker sends an HTTP request to the non-mTLS EDA event stream endpoint and includes a crafted Subject HTTP header whose value matches a legitimate client certificate Distinguished Name (DN) trusted by the upstream service.
  • Attack vector: Fully remote and network-accessible. No authentication, privileges, or user interaction are required (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N).
  • Impact: The spoofed Subject header is forwarded to the EDA backend, effectively bypassing the mTLS client authentication gate. The attacker can inject arbitrary events into protected EDA event streams, which can trigger unauthorized automation playbook execution in the target environment — resulting in high integrity impact and limited confidentiality impact.

Affected software

  • Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 — automation-gateway package (ansible-automation-platform-27/gateway-rhel9)

Severity

CVSS v3.1 Base Score: 8.2 (High)
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N

Mitigation and recommended actions

  • Immediate: Apply the security update for the automation-gateway package issued by Red Hat. Refer to the Red Hat CVE page for the specific patched package version.
  • Interim workaround (if patching is not immediately possible):
    • Enforce network-level access controls at the firewall or load balancer to restrict access to the non-mTLS EDA event stream endpoints from untrusted sources.
    • Where feasible, route all event stream traffic exclusively through mTLS-protected endpoints.
    • Implement monitoring and alerting for anomalous or unexpected event injection activity on EDA event streams.

IONIX Status

The IONIX research team is tracking ongoing exploitation attempts and recommends immediate patching. Potentially affected assets are outlined in this post.

References

Are you exposed?

Get a free report of your organization’s exposure to this CVE and threat

  • Mapping of all Assets with this Technology
  • Identification of potentially exposed assets to this CVE
  • Confirmation of verified exploitable assets
Get Exposure Report

How IONIX’s External Exposure Management Platform Detects and Validates
Zero-Days to Shrink MTTR

1

Map your entire attack surface (continously)

IONIX uses multi-factor discovery methods, including DNS analysis, certificate mapping, metadata inspection, and more, to automatically map every internet-facing asset across your environment. This includes cloud instances, third-party platforms, shadow IT, and even forgotten infrastructure that traditional tools miss.

2

Monitor for new CVEs

Dozens of threat intel feeds using agentic technology are continuously analyzed to detect the appearance of proof-of-concept code, exploit kits, and indicators of active targeting. IONIX goes further by applying AI to proactively evaluate whether emerging vulnerabilities are likely to be exploited, even before PoCs go public.

3

Identify Potential External Exposures

Not all CVEs matter. IONIX filters vulnerabilities by asking attacker-centric questions: Can it be reached from the internet? Does it require authentication? Is it being exploited in the wild? This dramatically reduces noise and focuses teams on threats that can actually be weaponized.

4

Create Safe, Scalable Exploit Validations

IONIX transforms real-world PoCs into safe, non-intrusive test payloads that can be run in production environments without disruption. These simulations are precisely targeted to the systems that are vulnerable, ensuring rapid validation without unnecessary load.

5

Execute Exploit Validations

By combining context about software stack, versioning, exposure status, and reachability, IONIX ensures that only the right payloads are executed against the right assets, maximizing efficiency and minimizing risk.

6

Drive Fast and Actionable Remediation

Results are routed through integrations with ticketing, SOAR, and SIEM tools. Issues are written in plain language, bundled into remediation clusters, and prioritized based on asset criticality, exploitability, and blast radius. This shortens mean time to remediation (MTTR) and empowers teams to act with confidence.

Are you exposed?

Get a free report of your organization’s exposure to this CVE and threat

  • Mapping of all Assets with this Technology
  • Identification of potentially exposed assets to this CVE
  • Confirmation of verified exploitable assets
Get Exposure Report
Close

Subscribe to Threat Center RSS

Copy/paste the link below into your preferred RSS reader or follow these instructions to subscribe to Slack alerts.

Open RSS feedSlack setup instructions

Close

Get Real-Time CVE Alerts to Your Email

Be the first to know when new zero-days emerge