CVE-2025-4437

MEDIUM

cri-o - Denial of Service via Large /etc/passwd File Processing

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

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.

References (2)

Core 2
Core References
Vendor Advisory vdb-entry x_refsource_redhat
https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-4437
Issue Tracking issue-tracking x_refsource_redhat
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2375084

Scores

CVSS v3 5.7
EPSS 0.0006
EPSS Percentile 19.9%
Attack Vector NETWORK
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CISA SSVC

Vulnrichment
Exploitation none
Automatable no
Technical Impact partial

Details

CWE
CWE-770
Status published
Products (2)
cri-o/cri-o 0Go
Red Hat/Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4
Published Aug 20, 2025
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026