Medium [CVE-2026-72816] IP Spoofing via RealIP Middleware allows bypassing access controls
This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-72816 affecting Cryostat 4, External Secrets Operator for Red Hat OpenShift, Gatekeeper 3.
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Summary
A flaw was found in the go-chi/chi RealIP middleware. This vulnerability allows a remote attacker to perform IP spoofing by supplying arbitrary IP addresses in client-controlled headers.
This can lead to bypassing IP-based access controls, evading rate limiting and geo-IP restrictions, and polluting audit logs. The realIP() function parses untrusted HTTP headers (True-Client-IP, X-Real-IP, X-Forwarded-For) and overwrites r.RemoteAddr without validating upstream proxy identity.
Remote unauthenticated attackers can supply arbitrary IP values in these headers to bypass IP-restricted endpoints, subvert rate-limiting controls, or poison application audit logs, posing a Low impact to confidentiality and integrity. Red Hat severity: Moderate — CVSS 6.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N).
Weakness: CWE-346.
Affected products named by the advisory: Cryostat 4; External Secrets Operator for Red Hat OpenShift; Gatekeeper 3; Logging Subsystem for Red Hat OpenShift; and 18 more.
Affected versions
No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative — check it before change work.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 1 hour ago·verify at source
Fixed versions
No fixed release is recorded yet. That does not prove no patch exists — confirm against the vendor advisory.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 1 hour ago·verify at source
Mitigation checklist
- Do not use the `chi/middleware.RealIP` middleware when receiving traffic directly from untrusted networks or unverified proxies. Instead, strip or sanitize client-supplied forwarding headers at an upstream edge proxy or reverse proxy (such as NGINX or HAProxy) before requests reach the application.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 1 hour ago·verify at source
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