CVE-2024-45496 — openshift-controller-mana…
CRITICALFix: openshift/openshift-controller-manager@3af3628CVE-2024-45496 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.9) Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in github.com/openshift/openshift-controller-manager. A fix is available for github.com/openshift/openshift-controller-manager — see the affected versions and patch details below.
OpenShift Controller Manager Improper Privilege Management
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-2024-45496.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2024-45496 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,636 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
github.com/openshift/openshift-controller-managerReal-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
A flaw was found in OpenShift. This issue occurs due to the misuse of elevated privileges in the OpenShift Container Platform's build process. During the build initialization step, the git-clone container is run with a privileged security context, allowing unrestricted access to the node. An attacker with developer-level access can provide a crafted .gitconfig file containing commands executed during the cloning process, leading to arbitrary command execution on the worker node. An attacker running code in a privileged container could escalate their permissions on the node running the container.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/openshift/openshift-controller-manager | all versions | 0.0.0-alpha.0.0.20240911go get github.com/openshift/openshift-controller-manager@v0.0.0-alpha.0.0.20240911 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/openshift/openshift-controller-manager, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/openshift/openshift-controller-manager to 0.0.0-alpha.0.0.20240911 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-45496 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2024-45496 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2024-45496. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
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.
In all versions of OpenShift, the "Custom" build strategy gives developers permission to run arbitrary commands in a privileged container. This is disabled by default, and documentation explicitly warns that this should only be enabled for highly trusted users (eg: cluster admins). We therefore do not consider this…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.12 | openshift4/ose-openshift-controller-manager-rhel8:v4.12.0-202409131137.p1.g0b1971a.assembly.stream.el8 | RHSA-2024:6705 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.13 | openshift4/ose-openshift-controller-manager-rhel8:v4.13.0-202409130707.p1.gb75d499.assembly.stream.el8 | RHSA-2024:6691 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.14 | openshift4/ose-openshift-controller-manager-rhel8:v4.14.0-202409130708.p1.g9020ea1.assembly.stream.el8 | RHSA-2024:6689 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.15 | openshift4/ose-openshift-controller-manager-rhel9:v4.15.0-202409131835.p1.gbe9d673.assembly.stream.el9 | RHSA-2024:6685 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.16 | openshift4/ose-openshift-controller-manager-rhel9:v4.16.0-202409130937.p1.g5dcfc99.assembly.stream.el9 | RHSA-2024:6687 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.17 | openshift4/ose-openshift-controller-manager-rhel9:v4.17.0-202409182235.p0.g7682a61.assembly.stream.el9 | RHSA-2024:3718 |
| 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-2024-45496 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2024-45496 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.