CVE-2022-29164 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.1) Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in github.com/argoproj/argo-workflows/v3. A fix is available for github.com/argoproj/argo-workflows/v3 — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Privilege Escalation in argo-workflows
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2022-29164.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
github.com/argoproj/argo-workflows/v3🐹github.com/argoproj/argo-workflows/v3Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Argo Workflows is an open source container-native workflow engine for orchestrating parallel jobs on Kubernetes.
- The attacker creates a workflow that produces a HTML artifact that contains a HTML file that contains a script which uses XHR calls to interact with the Argo Server API.
- The attacker emails the deep-link to the artifact to their victim. The victim opens the link, the script starts running.
As the script has access to the Argo Server API (as the victim), so may do the following (if the victim may):
- Read information about the victim’s workflows.
- Create or delete workflows.
Notes:
- The attacker must be an insider: they must have access to the same cluster as the victim and must already be able to run their own workflows.
- The attacker must have an understanding of the victim’s system. They won’t be able to repeatedly probe due to the social engineering aspect.
- The attacker is likely leave an audit trail.
We have seen no evidence of this in the wild. While the impact is high, it is very hard to exploit.
We urge all users to upgrade to the fixed versions. Disabling the Argo Server is the only known workaround. Note version 2.12 has been out of support for sometime. No fix is currently planned.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/argoproj/argo-workflows/v3 | ≥ 2.6.0&&< 3.2.11 | 3.2.11go get github.com/argoproj/argo-workflows/v3@v3.2.11 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/argoproj/argo-workflows/v3 | ≥ 3.3.0&&< 3.3.5 | 3.3.5go get github.com/argoproj/argo-workflows/v3@v3.3.5 |
Affected Products
argo workflowsargoprojDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/argoproj/argo-workflows/v3, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/argoproj/argo-workflows/v3 to 3.2.11 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-29164 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Close the privilege gap rather than the entry point: audit which accounts, roles and service identities can reach the affected operation, drop the component to the least privilege it actually needs, and review file and directory permissions created by earlier installs — a default left in place is what makes this reachable.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-29164 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.