Medium [CVE-2025-4437] Cri-o: large /etc/passwd file may lead to denial of service
This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2025-4437 affecting Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.
Android app · Google Play
Monitor future Red Hat Linux CVEs from your phone.
Choose a whole vendor or a precise platform, then receive matching security advisories by phone notification, email, or both. Coverage follows 32 official vendor sources and 160+ reviewed platform categories.
Summary
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.
This vulnerability was rated as Moderate by the Red Hat's Product Security team as it requires the attacker to own an account with minimal privileges to create pods using the CRI-O utility. Red Hat severity: Moderate — CVSS 5.7 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).
Weakness: CWE-770. Affected Red Hat products: Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.
Red Hat does not currently list a fixing RHSA for this CVE.
Affected versions
No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative — check it before change work.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 51 minutes ago·verify at source
Fixed versions
No fixed release is recorded yet. That does not prove no patch exists — confirm against the vendor advisory.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 51 minutes ago·verify at source
Mitigation checklist
- As for now there's no available mitigation for this flaw.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 51 minutes ago·verify at source
Discussion(0)
No comments yet. Share field notes, upgrade gotchas, or questions — verify against the vendor advisory before acting on community advice.
Sign in to join the discussion.