CVE-2025-4437

Cri-o: large /etc/passwd file may lead to denial of service

State
Published
Severity
5.7 Medium
Published
Aug 20, 2025
Updated
Sep 1, 2026
Reserved
May 8, 2025

Read the record on cve.org

Description

There's a vulnerability in the CRI-O application where when container is launched with securityContext.runAsUser specifying a non-existent user, CRI-O attempts to create the user, reading the container's entire /etc/passwd file into memory. If this file is excessively large, it can cause the a high memory consumption leading applications to be killed due to out-of-memory. As a result a denial-of-service can be achieved, possibly disrupting other pods and services running in the same host.

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
3.15.7 MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:Hredhat

Weaknesses

  • CWE-770 Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

Affected Products

ProductVersions
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4Red Hat
    Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4Red Hat
      Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4Red Hat

        References

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