CVE-2026-9801 PUBLISHED

Keycloak: keycloak: denial of service via malformed ldap password policy response

Assigner: redhat
Reserved: 28.05.2026 Published: 28.05.2026 Updated: 28.05.2026

A flaw was found in Keycloak. A remote attacker with high privileges, such as a realm administrator configuring a malicious Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server or an attacker compromising an upstream LDAP server, could exploit this vulnerability. By sending a malformed LDAP password policy response during a password authentication request, the attacker can trigger an OutOfMemoryError. This causes the Keycloak Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to terminate, leading to a denial of service (DoS) for all realms on the affected node.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CVSS Score: 4.9

Product Status

Vendor Red Hat
Product Red Hat Build of Keycloak
Versions Default: affected

Workarounds

To mitigate this vulnerability, ensure that Keycloak's LDAP user-storage providers are configured to connect only to trusted and secure LDAP servers. Avoid configuring LDAP federation with unverified or potentially malicious LDAP endpoints. Additionally, always use TLS for LDAP connections to prevent Man-in-the-Middle attacks. If an upstream LDAP server is compromised, it should be isolated and secured immediately.

Credits

  • Red Hat would like to thank Seongkuk Park for reporting this issue.

References

Problem Types

  • Improper Validation of Specified Quantity in Input CWE