A flaw was found in the memcached cache plugin of the community.general Ansible collection. Although its documentation states that records are stored in JSON format, the plugin performs no explicit serialization and relies on python-memcached, which pickles values on write and unpickles them on read. Because memcached is unauthenticated and cache keys are predictable, an attacker able to reach a network-exposed or shared memcached instance can write a crafted pickle payload that is deserialized and executed on the Ansible controller when the poisoned fact cache is next read, leading to remote code execution.
History

Thu, 10 Sep 2026 00:15:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
References
Metrics threat_severity

None

threat_severity

Moderate


Wed, 09 Sep 2026 17:30:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'total'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}


Wed, 09 Sep 2026 16:30:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description A flaw was found in the memcached cache plugin of the community.general Ansible collection. Although its documentation states that records are stored in JSON format, the plugin performs no explicit serialization and relies on python-memcached, which pickles values on write and unpickles them on read. Because memcached is unauthenticated and cache keys are predictable, an attacker able to reach a network-exposed or shared memcached instance can write a crafted pickle payload that is deserialized and executed on the Ansible controller when the poisoned fact cache is next read, leading to remote code execution.
Title Community.general: community.general: memcached cache plugin deserializes untrusted pickle data from memcached, enabling cache-poisoning remote code execution on the ansible controller
First Time appeared Redhat
Redhat ceph Storage
Redhat openstack
Weaknesses CWE-502
CPEs cpe:/a:redhat:ceph_storage:5
cpe:/a:redhat:ceph_storage:9
cpe:/a:redhat:openstack:17.1
cpe:/a:redhat:openstack:18.0
Vendors & Products Redhat
Redhat ceph Storage
Redhat openstack
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 8.1, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H'}


cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: redhat

Published: 2026-09-09T16:06:22.995Z

Updated: 2026-09-09T16:59:14.348Z

Reserved: 2026-09-09T13:36:20.508Z

Link: CVE-2026-87874

cve-icon Vulnrichment

Updated: 2026-09-09T16:58:59.241Z

cve-icon NVD

Status : Awaiting Analysis

Published: 2026-09-09T17:17:53.093

Modified: 2026-09-09T20:13:26.720

Link: CVE-2026-87874

cve-icon Redhat

Severity : Moderate

Publid Date: 2026-09-09T00:00:00Z

Links: CVE-2026-87874 - Bugzilla