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Add CVE-2026-33551 announcement. (#356)
* Add CVE-2026-33551 announcement. * Fix OSSA link. * Avoid link checker barfing. * Fix link to .well-known/security.txt. The markdown checker does not accept links in <> syntax. * Same as before, no links in <>. Signed-off-by: Kurt Garloff <kurt@garloff.de>
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blog/2026-04-08-cve-2026-33551.md

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title: CVE-2026-33551 OpenStack privilege escalation with EC2 credentials from Application Credentials
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authors: [garloff]
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slug: openstack_privescal_ec2_creds_from_appcreds_cve_2026_33551
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tags: [security, openstack, cve]
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---
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## The vulnerability
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OpenStack allows the creation of Application Credentials to give its bearer
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access to a project with the privileges of the user who created the AppCreds.
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Application Credentials can have a limited lifetime and can be revoked. They
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can also be _restricted_ (which means that they can not be used to create
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additional application credentials) or can be assigned roles with lower
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privileges, limiting the privileges that the bearer has.
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When AppCreds are used to create EC2 credentials, keystone failed to
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require _unrestricted_ AppCreds and failed to require the member role,
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giving AppCreds that are _restricted_ or that have limited roles the
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ability to create EC2 credentials with the full privileges of the user
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who created the AppCred.
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This issue was reported by Maxence Bornecque from Orange Cyberdefense CERT
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Vulnerability Intelligence Watch Team and has been assigned
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[CVE-2026-33551](https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-33551).
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## Impact on the SCS software ecosystem
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This issue affects OpenStack environments that allow the creation of EC2
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style credentials, which is typically used for S3 access or EC2 compatibility.
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This is typically the case for SCS clouds, as S3 compatibility is a requirement.
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While creating AppCreds with roles with lower privileges is not a very common
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use case, it is supported by OpenStack clouds and is actually a good practice
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to limit the privileges of running coponents or the delegated privileges for
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human bearers of the AppCred. The fact that EC2 credentials can be used to
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work around an regain the privileges of the user who created the original
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AppCred is a serious issue, as it breaks the principle of least privileges
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and may weaken or break security models for applications or delegated
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authorizations.
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Note that this vulnerability does not allow to escalate privileges further
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than the original AppCred creators privileges and does require the attacker
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to get access to the limited AppCred in the first place.
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## Embargo
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The issue has been reported to the OpenStack Vulnerability Management Team in
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private. The reporters and upstream developers have worked together to address
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the issue with fixes and an embargo date
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has been set to Tuesday, 2026-04-07, 15:00 UTC (17:00 CEST). At this point in
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time, the patches get merged and the OpenStack Security Advisory
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[OSSA-2026-005](https://security.openstack.org/ossa/OSSA-2026-005.html) is
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published. The issue is tracked in OpenStack issue
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[#2142138](https://bugs.launchpad.net/nova/+bug/2142138), which should become
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publically accessible after the lift of the embargo and the publication
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of this advisory.
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Under the used responsible disclosure approach, the information was shared with
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a select group of trustable users of OpenStack, so they can prepare updates and
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protect their user data in time for the publication.
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## Mitigation and Fixes
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The temporary fix for this issue would be to disable the creation of EC2
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credentials which however would prevent to enable new S3 access.
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There are patches from the upstream OpenStack keystone developers available.
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They add a check in the EC2 credential creation path that requires the
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AppCred to be unrestricted and to have at least member access to the project.
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The SCS ecosystem software providers provide fixed keystone images and
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installation instructions here as soon as the updated images are available:
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- [OSISM](https://osism.tech/docs/appendix/security/ossa-2026-005)
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- [yaook]<!--(https://yaook.cloud/security-advisories-cve-2026-33551)--> (TBD)
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## Thanks
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The author would like to thank Maxence Bornecque, Grzegorz Grasza,
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Douglas Mendizabal, Artem Goncharov, and Jeremy Stanley for reporting,
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fixing and coordinating this issue.
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## Sovereign Cloud Stack Security Contact
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SCS security contact is [security@scs.community](mailto:security@scs.community), as published on
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[https://sovereigncloudstack.org/.well-known/security.txt](https://sovereigncloudstack.org/.well-known/security.txt).
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## Version history
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- Initial draft, v0,9, 2026-04-08, 13:45 CEST

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