CVE-2025-2843 — observability-operator
HIGHCVE-2025-2843 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) CWE-266 vulnerability in github.com/rhobs/observability-operator. A fix is available for github.com/rhobs/observability-operator — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Observability-operator: observability operator privilege escalation
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-2025-2843.
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-2025-2843 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 377,333 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/rhobs/observability-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
A flaw was found in the Observability Operator. The Operator creates a ServiceAccount with ClusterRole upon deployment of the Namespace-Scoped Custom Resource MonitorStack. This issue allows an adversarial Kubernetes Account with only namespaced-level roles, for example, a tenant controlling a namespace, to create a MonitorStack in the authorized namespace and then elevate permission to the cluster level by impersonating the ServiceAccount created by the Operator, resulting in privilege escalation and other issues.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/rhobs/observability-operator | all versions | 1.3.0go get github.com/rhobs/observability-operator@v1.3.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/rhobs/observability-operator, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/rhobs/observability-operator to 1.3.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2025-2843 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-2025-2843 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2025-2843. 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.
Red Hat rates this with an Important impact. Although the attacker may use a previously privileged account, the escalation may lead to broader cluster access.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Cluster Observability Operator 1.3.0 | cluster-observability-operator/cluster-observability-rhel9-operator:1.3.0-1762825457 | RHSA-2025:21146 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2025-2843 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2025-2843 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.