Medium [CVE-2025-57847] privilege escalation via excessive group writable /etc/passwd permissions

A container privilege escalation flaw was found in certain Ansible Automation Platform images. This issue arises from the /etc/passwd file being created with group-writable permissions during the build process.

In certain conditions, an attacker who can execute commands within an affected container, even as a non-root user, can leverage their membership in the root group to modify the /etc/passwd file. This vulnerability allows an attacker to add a new user with any arbitrary UID, including UID 0, gaining full root privileges within the container.

Red Hat Product Security has rated this vulnerability as moderate severity for affected products which run on OpenShift. The vulnerability allows for potential privilege escalation within a container, but OpenShift's default, multi-layered security posture effectively mitigates this risk.

The primary controls include the default Security Context Constraints (SCC), which severely limit a container's permissions from the start, and SELinux, which enforces mandatory access control to ensure strict isolation.

While other container runtime environments may have different controls available and require case-by-case analysis, OpenShift's built-in defenses are designed to prevent this type of attack. Out of Box RHEL configuration isolates a single process inside a container.