Ansible Operator Plugins contain an unsafe unsanitized input flaw that allows a low‑privileged Kubernetes user to inject Jinja2 expressions into custom resource specifications. When such expressions are processed by Ansible, they are executed inside the operator pod, providing the attacker with arbitrary code execution and the ability to elevate privileges to that of the operator's service account, which typically has cluster‑wide rights.

Red Hat Migration Toolkit for Applications 8, Red Hat Migration Toolkit for Containers, Red Hat Migration Toolkit for Virtualization, Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh 3, Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4, Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization 4, Red Hat OpenStack Platform 16.2, Red Hat OpenStack Platform 17.1, Red Hat OpenStack Platform 18.0, and Red Hat Service Telemetry Framework 1.5.

The CVSS score of 8.5 indicates a high severity vulnerability. Because the attack requires only low‑privileged Kubernetes access and crafted custom resource values, an attacker with such credentials can directly inject malicious Jinja2 code. The exploit path is straightforward: submit a malicious custom resource, the operator evaluates it un‑sanitised, and arbitrary commands run under the operator service account. The EPSS score is currently not available, and the vulnerability is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog, but the high CVSS and the path of exploitation suggest a high risk for clusters that expose untrusted custom resources.