CVE-2025-4437
MEDIUMcri-o - Denial of Service via Large /etc/passwd File Processing
Title source: llmDescription
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