Argo Workflows: Unchecked annotation parsing in pod informer crashes Argo Workflows controller
Argo Workflows is an open source container-native workflow engine for orchestrating parallel jobs on Kubernetes. From 3.6.5 to 4.0.4, an unchecked array index in the pod informer's podGCFromPod() function causes a controller-wide panic when a workflow pod carries a malformed workflows.argoproj.io/pod-gc-strategy annotation. Because the panic occurs inside an informer goroutine (outside the controller's recover() scope), it crashes the entire controller process. The poisoned pod persists across restarts, causing a crash loop that halts all workflow processing until the pod is manually deleted. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.0.5 and 3.7.14.
AV:NAttack VectorAC:LAttack ComplexityPR:LPrivileges RequiredUI:NUser InteractionS:CScopeC:NConfidentialityI:NIntegrityA:HAvailabilityGet the full picture for CVE-2026-40886 and every CVE in our database. Create a free account — no credit card required.
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