High [CVE-2026-79678] Freeipa: idm: freeipa: idp-add eval reachable before authorization check allows environment disclosure and denial of service
This high-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-79678 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.
Android app · Google Play
Monitor future Red Hat Linux CVEs from your phone.
Choose a whole vendor or a precise platform, then receive matching security advisories by phone notification, email, or both. Coverage follows 32 official vendor sources and 160+ reviewed platform categories.
Summary
A flaw was found in FreeIPA's idp-add command, where insufficiently validated --organization/--base-url input reaches a constrained eval() call before the corresponding LDAP access control check is enforced.
This allows any authenticated IPA principal, regardless of privilege level, to enumerate and read the environment variables of the affected server process and to cause denial of service via memory exhaustion. This flaw does not allow arbitrary code execution.
The eval() call reachable through this flaw is constrained by a regular expression that forbids parentheses in the evaluated expression, which prevents invoking any function. The severity of the confidentiality impact from this flaw depends on the deployment method.
On a standard RPM-based Identity Management (IdM) installation, the affected server process's environment contains only non-sensitive, publicly documented path constants and configuration flags.
In container-based deployments using the official FreeIPA server container image, where the Directory Manager and administrator passwords are commonly supplied via an environment variable at first boot, this flaw could expose those credentials if they remain present in the process environment after installation completes.
Red Hat severity: Important — CVSS 8.1 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H). Weakness: CWE-95.
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 2 hours 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 2 hours ago·verify at source
Mitigation checklist
- There is no configuration-based mitigation that prevents an authenticated but unprivileged principal from reaching the affected code path; upgrading to a fixed package is required once available. Administrators of container-based deployments should verify that credentials supplied via the PASSWORD environment variable during initial container setup do not persist in the running server process's environment.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 2 hours ago·verify at source
Discussion(0)
No comments yet. Share field notes, upgrade gotchas, or questions — verify against the vendor advisory before acting on community advice.
Sign in to join the discussion.