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CVE-2025-4437

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

Published: Aug 20, 2025Updated: Aug 20, 2025 Sources: CVE List NVD GHSACWE-770
5.7MEDIUM
NVD MITRE
EPSS Score
0.2%
Top 84.9%
CISA KEV
Not in KEV
Exploits
No Known Exploits
Remediation
Workaround Only
Self-Check
OpenVAS

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.

No summary for this CVE yet.

CVSS Vector Breakdown

AV:NAC:LPR:LUI:RS:UC:NI:NA:H
Exploitability
AV:NAttack Vector
Network
AC:LAttack Complexity
Low
PR:LPrivileges Required
Low
UI:RUser Interaction
Required
Scope
S:UScope
Unchanged
Impact
C:NConfidentiality
None
I:NIntegrity
None
A:HAvailability
High
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Weaknesses

CWE-770

Affected Products

Red Hat
commercial·US
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4SaaSSaaS Service
Cloud & SaaS / container-orchestration
Go
package-ecosystem
github.com/cri-o/cri-o
OSS Libraries

Exploitability

Workaround Available
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Attack Graph

Products CVE Techniques Tactics

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MITRE ATT&CK

1 technique
Impact
View detailed technique mapping

References

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-4437
access.redhat.com
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2375084
bugzilla.redhat.com
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-4437
nvd.nist.gov
and 2 more references View all →

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