Improper Certificate ValidationWeakness · CWE-295

CVE-2025-71261

HIGH · 8.6 CVSS v3.1 Published 2026-06-16
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
95/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
An attacker with network-level access between the SUSE Virtualization and Rancher Manager in SUSE Harvester before 1.8.0 could interfere with the TLS handshake and abuse it to bypass TLS as a security control.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · moderate confidence

A network-level attacker positioned between SUSE Virtualization and Rancher Manager in SUSE Harvester versions before 1.8.0 can interfere with the TLS handshake process, allowing the attacker to bypass TLS security controls and potentially intercept or manipulate encrypted communications.

MitigationUpgrade SUSE Harvester to version 1.8.0 or later to obtain the fix. Additionally, enforce network segmentation to restrict unauthorized network-level access between virtualization and management infrastructure.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
High

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

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify installed Harvester version
    Use system management tools or check the Harvester cluster status to retrieve the currently deployed version number (e.g., `kubectl get harvester -o jsonpath='{.items[].status.version}'` or via the Harvester UI dashboard)
    Affected if The installed version is lower than 1.8.0 (e.g., 1.7.x, 1.6.x, or earlier)
  2. Determine if Rancher Manager integration is active
    Check whether Harvester is configured to communicate with a Rancher Manager instance, as the vulnerability affects the TLS handshake between SUSE Virtualization and Rancher Manager
    Affected if Rancher Manager integration is enabled and the virtualization layer communicates with it over TLS
  3. Assess network exposure between virtualization and management planes
    Evaluate network topology and access controls to determine if an unauthenticated network-level attacker could position themselves between the Harvester virtualization hosts and the Rancher Manager server (e.g., review firewall rules, VLAN segmentation, VPN status, and whether the network path traverses untrusted segments)
    Affected if The network path between Virtualization and Rancher Manager is accessible to untrusted actors or lacks proper segmentation, allowing a man-in-the-middle position

You are affected if Harvester version is below 1.8.0 AND Rancher Manager integration is active AND an attacker could potentially intercept network traffic between the virtualization and management layers.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Upgrade SUSE Harvester to version 1.8.0 or later to obtain the fix. Additionally, enforce network segmentation to restrict unauthorized network-level access between virtualization and management infrastructure.

Recommended fix Moderate confidence

SUSE Harvester 1.8.0

  1. 1. Back up all critical data and configurations for your SUSE Harvester installation
  2. 2. Review the SUSE Harvester 1.8.0 release notes for any pre-upgrade requirements or migration procedures
  3. 3. Upgrade SUSE Harvester to version 1.8.0 or later
  4. 4. After upgrade, verify that TLS certificate validation is functioning correctly between SUSE Virtualization and Rancher Manager components
  5. 5. Test network connectivity and ensure all services start successfully
Caveat Review release notes for any configuration or API changes that may affect your deployment

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing6.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
20.0 hours of engineering $3,500
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-71261 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-71261 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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