CVE-2026-84691 Information disclosure in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.5 for RHEL 8
An administrator can exploit format string injection in API error logs to disclose Django secret keys and database credentials, enabling credential decryption and session forgery.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- An administrator
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-84691?
CVE-2026-84691 is a high-severity vulnerability in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.5 for RHEL 8, published on 23 Sep 2026. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.
Official description
A flaw was found in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform's automation- controller. The setting that formats the log message emitted for API 4XX errors is an administrator-controlled Python format-string template that is rendered with a live user object as an argument. Because Python string formatting permits attribute and item traversal on its arguments, an administrator can craft a template that walks from the user object into the application settings and reads the Django secret key and the database password. The formatted message is written to a logger that can be forwarded to an external log aggregator, whose destination is also administrator-controlled, allowing the secrets to be sent off the host. An authenticated administrator can thereby obtain the master encryption key used to protect all stored credentials and the database service password, enabling offline decryption of every stored credential, forgery of user sessions, and direct access to the controller database.
Weakness: CWE-134
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-84691?
How do I fix CVE-2026-84691?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2026-84691 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-84691 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-xrjh-rfcr-rxj7.