Path Traversal in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2

CVE-2026-90959

A path traversal vulnerability was found in pulpcore. The content upload API accepts a 'file_url' parameter that allows users with file repository privileges to specify a local file URL for Pulp to download and store. A URL scheme validation check uses a string prefix comparison that only rejects URLs beginning with 'file://', but Python's URL parser recognizes the 'file:' scheme without double slashes, creating a mismatch between what is validated and what is dispatched to the file downloader. An authenticated user with low-privilege repository permissions can supply a specially crafted URL using relative path traversal sequences to read any file accessible to the Pulp server process. In deployments that include Pulp Container, successful exploitation allows an attacker to read the container registry token signing private key and forge bearer tokens, granting unauthorized access to all private container repositories in the affected registry.

Vulnerability class: Path Traversal (Directory Traversal)

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 8.1 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.004 (35.5th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 36th percentile — 35.5% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-90959: held from 0.003 to 0.004.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.003 · newest: 0.004 · change: +0.001

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-90959?
CVE-2026-90959 is a high-severity vulnerability in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2, classified under Path Traversal. CVSS score: 8.1/10. Published 2026-09-24.
How severe is CVE-2026-90959?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.1 out of 10.