Bug 2456637 (CVE-2026-20709)

Summary: CVE-2026-20709 microcode_ctl: Intel Processors: Escalation of privilege due to default cryptographic key
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in some Intel Pentium Processor Silver Series, Intel Celeron Processor J Series, and Intel Celeron Processor N Series. This vulnerability arises from the use of a default cryptographic key in the hardware. A sophisticated attacker with physical access and privileged user access could exploit this to achieve an escalation of privilege, potentially compromising the system's confidentiality and integrity.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-04-08 19:06:16 UTC 
Use of Default Cryptographic Key in the hardware for some Intel(R) Pentium(R) Processor Silver Series, Intel(R) Celeron(R) Processor J Series, Intel(R) Celeron(R) Processor N Series may allow an escalation of privilege. Hardware reverse engineer adversary with a privileged user combined with a high complexity attack may enable escalation of privilege. This result may potentially occur via physical access when attack requirements are present with special internal knowledge and requires no user interaction. The potential vulnerability may impact the confidentiality (high), integrity (none) and availability (none) of the vulnerable system, resulting in subsequent system confidentiality (high), integrity (high) and availability (none) impacts.