Medium [CVE-2025-57848] Container-native-virtualization: privilege escalation via excessive /etc/passwd permissions
This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2025-57848 affecting RHEL-8-CNV-4.12, RHEL-9-CNV-4.14, RHEL-9-CNV-4.17.
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Summary
A container privilege escalation flaw was found in certain Container-native Virtualization images. This issue stems from the /etc/passwd file being created with group-writable permissions during build time.
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 could allow the attacker to add a new user with any arbitrary UID, including UID 0, leading to full root privileges within the container.
Affected products named by the advisory: RHEL-8-CNV-4.12; RHEL-9-CNV-4.14; RHEL-9-CNV-4.17; RHEL-9-CNV-4.18; and 2 more.
Affected products named by the advisory: RHEL-9-CNV-4.19; Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization 4.
Affected versions
No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative — check it before change work.
Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 1 hour 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 · medium-confidence parse· fetched 1 hour ago·verify at source
Mitigation
The source record does not include mitigation steps. That is not a statement that no fix exists — read the vendor advisory below for the authoritative guidance.
Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 1 hour ago·verify at source
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