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Harvester's SUSE Virtualization Registration Client Vulnerable to MITM and DOS

High severity GitHub Reviewed Published Apr 28, 2026 in harvester/harvester • Updated May 6, 2026

Package

gomod github.com/harvester/harvester (Go)

Affected versions

< 1.8.0

Patched versions

1.8.0

Description

Impact

A vulnerability has been identified in the SUSE Virtualization (Harvester) Rancher integration mechanism where by default the registration client uses an insecure TLS option that fails to verify the remote server’s certificate. This security gap could allow the execution of a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack against SUSE Virtualization.

An attacker with network-level access between the SUSE Virtualization and Rancher Manager could interfere with the TLS handshake and abuse it to bypass TLS as a security control. The registration client could be misled to send cluster registration requests to an impersonated remote service. Additionally, because the system processes response payloads without performing size validation, an attacker could induce a memory buffer overflow, leading to a potential crash of the SUSE Virtualization registration controller.

Note that this vulnerability only affects the cluster registration configuration (the cluster-registration-url setting) which is distinct from the secured configuration used to maintain operational connectivity between SUSE Virtualization and Rancher Manager, as well as between the manager and hosted downstream clusters.

Please consult the associated MITRE ATT&CK - Technique - Adversary-in-the-Middle and MITRE ATT&CK - Technique - Endpoint Denial of Service: Application or System Exploitation for further information about this category of attack.

Patches

This vulnerability is addressed by updating the registration client’s default behaviour to validate the certificate presented by the remote server against the list of trusted system root certificate authority (CA) and those defined by the additional-ca setting.

Patched versions of SUSE Virtualization include releases v1.8.0 or newer.

Workarounds

If developers can't upgrade to a fixed version, ensure that only authorized cluster administrators can access and modify the cluster-registration-url setting.

Resources

If there are any questions or comments about this advisory:

References

@ihcsim ihcsim published to harvester/harvester Apr 28, 2026
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database May 6, 2026
Reviewed May 6, 2026
Last updated May 6, 2026

Severity

High

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:H

EPSS score

Weaknesses

Improper Certificate Validation

The product does not validate, or incorrectly validates, a certificate. Learn more on MITRE.

CVE ID

CVE-2025-71261

GHSA ID

GHSA-pgh9-mpwc-8jjf

Source code

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