CVE-2026-3121: Keycloak: org.keycloak/keycloak-services: keycloak: privilege escalation via manage-clients permission
A flaw was found in Keycloak. An administrator with manage-clients permission can exploit a misconfiguration where this permission is equivalent to manage-permissions. This allows the administrator to escalate privileges and gain control over roles, users, or other administrative functions within the realm. This privilege escalation can occur when admin permissions are enabled at the realm level.
Other sources
An admin with manage-clients permission, has always access to manage permissions via the permissions client and, therefore, can escalate privileges to assign to him or other admins permissions to manage roles, users or whatever. Right now manage-clients is exactly the same than manage-permissions. Requirements to exploit: The attacker should be a manage-clients administrator in keycloak and the realm should be configure with admin permissions (enabled at realm level). Reproducer In a keycloak realm enable admin permissions in Realm Settings -> General.
Create an admin user and grant to him manage, view and list clients.
— Red Hat