CVE-2026-93860 in Mistral
Summary
by MITRE • 10/08/2026
In OpenStack Mistral through 23.0.0, the /v2/maintenance API controller clears the request context and calls the maintenance service directly without any policy enforcement. Any holder of a valid Mistral token, regardless of assigned role, can read and change the service's cluster-wide maintenance state. Setting the state to PAUSED stops processing of new workflow and execution objects across all tenant projects until an operator restores it.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/08/2026
The vulnerability in OpenStack Mistral versions through 23.0.0 represents a critical failure in access control mechanisms within the orchestration service's maintenance API endpoint. Specifically, the /v2/maintenance controller bypasses standard policy enforcement procedures by clearing the request context and invoking the underlying maintenance service directly. This architectural flaw effectively nullifies the role-based access control (RBAC) policies that are typically applied to other administrative operations in OpenStack services. As a result, any user possessing a valid Mistral authentication token can interact with this endpoint without being subjected to authorization checks based on their assigned roles or permissions.
This lack of enforcement allows unauthorized actors to read and modify the cluster-wide maintenance state regardless of their privilege level within the tenant projects. The operational impact is severe because setting the maintenance state to PAUSED halts the processing of new workflow executions across all tenants in the cloud environment. This action effectively creates a denial-of-service condition for automated orchestration tasks, preventing critical infrastructure automation and application deployments from proceeding until an operator manually intervenes to restore normal operations.
From a classification perspective, this vulnerability aligns with CWE-284 Improper Access Control, as it involves insufficient verification of user authorization before granting access to sensitive functionality. Furthermore, the exploitation technique maps to ATT&CK T1078 Valid Accounts and potentially T1496 Resource Hijacking if leveraged for disruptive purposes by an attacker who has obtained valid credentials through other means such as phishing or credential stuffing attacks. The core issue lies in the direct invocation of backend services without passing through the middleware layers responsible for policy evaluation, which is a common pattern in legacy API implementations that have not been updated to enforce consistent security controls across all endpoints.
Mitigation strategies should prioritize immediate patching to versions where this bypass has been corrected by ensuring proper context propagation and policy enforcement before service invocation. In environments where upgrading is not immediately feasible, network-level access control lists can be employed to restrict traffic to the Mistral API endpoint exclusively from trusted administrative subnets or proxy servers that enforce additional authentication layers. Additionally, implementing strict monitoring for unusual patterns in maintenance state changes can help detect potential exploitation attempts early, allowing security teams to respond before significant operational disruption occurs across multiple tenant projects.