High [CVE-2026-15218] maas-api and maas-controller ServiceAccounts with excessive permissions lead to privilege escalation

A flaw was found in the maas-api and maas-controller ServiceAccounts within Red Hat OpenShift AI. These ServiceAccounts are granted cluster-wide permissions that exceed their operational requirements.

An attacker who compromises the identity of these ServiceAccounts, either through a remote code execution vulnerability or by creating a malicious pod in the same namespace, could exploit these excessive permissions.

This could lead to full cluster administrator privileges through the creation of new ClusterRoleBindings or the disclosure of sensitive information by accessing all secrets across the cluster.

Although exploitation necessitates a prior compromise of a pod or the ability to create pods in the respective namespaces, a successful attack could result in privilege escalation to cluster-admin or the unauthorized exfiltration of cluster-wide secrets. Red Hat severity: Moderate — CVSS 7.9 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:L).

Weakness: CWE-266. Affected Red Hat products: Red Hat OpenShift AI 3.4; Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI).

Red Hat fixing advisory: RHSA-2026:60520.