Red Hat Keycloak Token Sanitization improper authorization

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability categorized as problematic has been discovered in Red Hat Keycloak. Affected by this issue is some unknown functionality of the component Token Sanitization. Executing a manipulation can lead to improper authorization. This vulnerability is registered as CVE-2026-97848. It is possible to launch the attack remotely. No exploit is available.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as problematic was found in Red Hat Keycloak (affected version unknown). This vulnerability affects an unknown functionality of the component Token Sanitization. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a improper authorization vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-285. The product does not perform or incorrectly performs an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action. As an impact it is known to affect integrity. CVE summarizes:

A flaw was found in the token sanitization logic of Keycloak, an open source identity and access management solution. The issue occurs when a protocol mapper is configured to emit structured claims using the JSON type. The security check designed to remove unauthorized role mappings only looks for standard Java maps and fails to recognize Jackson based JSON objects. This allows an attacker to inject forged client roles into security tokens, which could lead to unauthorized access to protected resources.

The advisory is shared for download at access.redhat.com. This vulnerability was named CVE-2026-97848 since 09/25/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. The attack can be initiated remotely. There are neither technical details nor an exploit publicly available. The current price for an exploit might be approx. USD $5k-$25k (estimation calculated on 11/06/2026). The MITRE ATT&CK project declares the attack technique as T1548.002.

There is no information about possible countermeasures known. It may be suggested to replace the affected object with an alternative product.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at EUVD (EUVD-2026-117923). Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Vendor

• Red Hat

Name

• Keycloak

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.redhat.com/

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Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

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