GitHub Advisoryadvisory · Go

GHSA-856v-8qm2-9wjv operator-sdk: privilege escalation due to incorrect permissions of /etc/passwd

MEDIUM Published 2025-08-07 Modified 2026-03-24 Official page ↗
Aliases
CVE-2025-7195
Ecosystem
Go
Packages
github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk
Severity
Moderate
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:L
Weaknesses
CWE-276
Reviewed
2025-08-07

Affected packages

• Go github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk: < 0.15.2 → fixed in 0.15.2

Description

Early versions of Operator-SDK provided an insecure method to allow operator containers to run in environments that used a random UID. Operator-SDK before 0.15.2 provided a script, user_setup, which modifies the permissions of the /etc/passwd file to 664 during build time. Developers who used Operator-SDK before 0.15.2 to scaffold their operator may still be impacted by this if the insecure user_setup script is still being used to build new container images. In affected images, the /etc/passwd file was created during build time with group-writable permissions and a group ownership of root (gid=0). An attacker who can execute commands within an affected container, even as a non-root user, may be able to 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.

Related

Alias · CVE (1)

  • CVE-2025-7195 Early versions of Operator-SDK provided an insecure method to allow operator containers to run in environments that used a random UID. vulnerability

Weakness · CWE (1)

  • CWE-276 Incorrect Default Permissions weakness

References