# CVE-2026-78234: Privilege escalation in Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4

> Namespace edit users can obtain Service-CA-signed certificates with arbitrary subjects, allowing impersonation of in-cluster services and privilege escalation.

- **Severity:** Critical 9.9 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 8 Sep 2026
- **Updated:** 8 Sep 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-hvx2-xh3r-xcr6

## What is CVE-2026-78234?

CVE-2026-78234 is a critical vulnerability in Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4, published on 8 Sep 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A flaw was found in hawtio-operator. The operator reads the OpenShift Service CA private signing key from the openshift-service-ca namespace and uses it to mint client certificates with a Subject Common Name (CN) supplied by the author of a namespaced Hawtio custom resource. Because the operator ships a ClusterRole that aggregates Hawtio CR permissions into the edit and admin roles, any user with edit access in any namespace can obtain a Service-CA-signed certificate with an arbitrary subject. This certificate can be used to impersonate any in-cluster service identity to peers that trust the Service CA for client authentication, including Jolokia agents and other Service-CA-trusting components.

Weakness: CWE-295 (Improper Certificate Validation)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-78234?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-78234?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-78234 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2026-78234 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-78234 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-78234 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-78234 is a critical vulnerability in Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4, published on 8 Sep 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-78234 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-78234/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-78234/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-78234
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-78234
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-78234

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-78234/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.