Junglewise Threat Intelligence

CVE-2026-43003: OpenStack Ironic Python Agent command injection via malicious image

CVE-2026-43003 · Severity: high · CVSS 8 · Published 2026-05-01

Technologies: Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4, OpenStack Ironic. Vendors: Red Hat, OpenStack, PyPI.

Executive brief

OpenStack Ironic Python Agent, a component used for provisioning bare-metal servers, contains a vulnerability that allows for arbitrary code execution. An attacker who can provide a malicious operating system image can trick the provisioning agent into executing harmful code during the bootloader installation process. This could lead to a compromise of the provisioning host, though the impact is somewhat mitigated by existing network safeguards and limited access to sensitive tokens.

Technical details

A command injection vulnerability exists in the OpenStack Ironic Python Agent (IPA) due to the insecure execution of binaries from within a chroot environment. When deploying a partition image that requires Ironic to manage bootloader installation (specifically BIOS-booted nodes without boot artifacts), IPA may execute 'grub-install' or other binaries located within the tenant-provided image. An attacker can supply a malicious partition image containing a crafted binary in the chroot path, leading to arbitrary code execution on the provisioning network host. While the vulnerability is high severity, exploitation requires the attacker to have permissions to provide deployment images and is limited by the fact that the agent typically holds redacted node objects and outdated tokens at the time of execution. Patches have been released to make this behavior optional and disabled by default.

Affected products

  • OpenStack ironic-python-agent < 10.2.3, >= 11.0.0 < 11.2.1, >= 11.3.0 < 11.5.1
  • OpenStack ironic < 29.0.6, >= 30.0.0 < 32.0.2, >= 33.0.0 < 35.0.2, >= 36.0.0 < 37.0.0
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4

Timeline

  • 2026-05-01: disclosed
  • 2026-05-01: advisory
  • 2026-06-16: other: Detailed technical advisory published via Openwall

References

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