CVE-2026-55997 Long-lived Rancher registration token exposed in plaintext
Attackers can steal plaintext registration tokens to register rogue nodes into Rancher clusters, requiring immediate patching.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2026-55997?
CVE-2026-55997 is a high-severity vulnerability in rancher, published on 5 Aug 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
Rancher issues long-lived registration tokens to authenticate nodes and agents joining a downstream cluster. These tokens were stored and exposed in plaintext with no expiration, so a malicious user could obtain one either through the Rancher API, etcd, stored automation, or direct file access on a node, and could use it at any time to register a rogue node into the cluster.
Weakness: CWE-312
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-55997?
How do I fix CVE-2026-55997?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-55997 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2026-55997 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-55997 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-7r53-jvhg-9jq4.