CVE-2024-43803 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.9) Information Exposure vulnerability in github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator. A fix is available for github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator — see the affected versions and patch details below.
BMO can expose particularly named secrets from other namespaces via BMH CRD
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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-2024-43803.
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/metal3-io/baremetal-operator🐹github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator🐹github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operatorReal-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
Impact
The Bare Metal Operator (BMO) implements a Kubernetes API for managing bare metal hosts in Metal3. The BareMetalHost (BMH) CRD allows the userData, metaData, and networkData for the provisioned host to be specified as links to Kubernetes Secrets. There are fields for both the Name and Namespace of the Secret, meaning that the baremetal-operator will read a Secret from any namespace. A user with access to create or edit a BareMetalHost can thus exfiltrate a Secret from another namespace by using it as e.g. the userData for provisioning some host (note that this need not be a real host, it could be a VM somewhere).
Limiting factors
BMO will only read a key with the name value (or userData, metaData, or networkData), so that limits the exposure somewhat. value is probably a pretty common key though. Secrets used by other BareMetalHosts in different namespaces are always vulnerable.
It is probably relatively unusual for anyone other than cluster administrators to have RBAC access to create/edit a BareMetalHost. This vulnerability is only meaningful, if the cluster has users other than administrators and users' privileges are limited to their respective namespaces.
Patches
The patch prevents BMO from accepting links to Secrets from other namespaces as BMH input. Any BMH configuration is only read from the same namespace only.
The problem is patched in BMO releases v0.8.0, v0.6.2 and v0.5.2 and users should upgrade to those versions. Prior upgrading and if needed, duplicate the BMC Secrets to the namespace where the corresponding BMH is. After upgrade, remove the old Secrets.
Workarounds
Operator can configure BMO RBAC to be namespace scoped for Secrets, instead of cluster scoped, to prevent BMO from accessing Secrets from other namespaces.
References
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator | ≥ 0.7.0-rc.0&&< 0.8.0 | 0.8.0go get github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator@v0.8.0 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator | ≥ 0.6.0&&< 0.6.2 | 0.6.2go get github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator@v0.6.2 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator | all versions | 0.5.2go get github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator@v0.5.2 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator to 0.8.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-43803 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Assume what was exposed is already known: rotate any credential, token or key that the affected component could return, restrict the endpoint to callers that genuinely need it, and strip sensitive fields from responses and error output at the boundary rather than relying on the client not to read them.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
This issue is considered moderate rather than important because it requires specific conditions to be exploited. The vulnerability relies on an attacker already having the ability to create or modify a BareMetalHost resource, which typically requires elevated permissions. Furthermore, the flaw only allows exfiltration…
The Operator can configure BMO RBAC to be the namespace scoped for Secrets, instead of the cluster scoped to prevent BMO from accessing Secrets from other namespaces.Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2024-43803 (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.16 | openshift4/ose-baremetal-rhel9-operator:v4.16.0-202409121637.p0.gae55a70.assembly.stream.el9 | RHSA-2024:6824 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.18 | openshift4/aws-kms-encryption-provider-rhel9:v4.18.0-202501230001.p0.g088dcaf.assembly.stream.el9 | RHSA-2024:6122 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-43803 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.