Executive brief
Red Hat Quay is a container image registry used by enterprises to manage and distribute containerized applications. A flaw in its JWT (JSON Web Token) validation for federated robot accounts and single sign-on (SSO) authentication allows attackers with a valid token from the same identity provider to bypass security restrictions on audience, subject, and authorized-client limitations. This could enable unauthorized access to container images and registry resources.
Technical details
The vulnerability is an improper authentication flaw (CWE-287) affecting JWT claim validation in Red Hat Quay's federated robot account and SSO authentication mechanisms. The root cause is insufficient enforcement of JWT audience verification and missing validation of 'azp' (authorized party) and 'sub' (subject) claims in certain configurations. An attacker with a validly-signed token from the same identity provider can exploit this by presenting the token to bypass configured security restrictions intended to limit audience, subject, or authorized-client access. Exploitation requires a pre-existing valid token from the same IdP (low privilege, network-accessible). Red Hat recommends configuring federated robot authentication with specific audiences to enable 'verify_aud' enforcement and explicitly enforcing 'azp' and 'sub' claims in federation configurations; patches are forthcoming.
Affected products
- Red Hat Quay <UNKNOWN>
Timeline
- 2026-08-14: disclosed