CVE-2025-29781 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) Information Exposure vulnerability in github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator/apis. A fix is available for github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator/apis — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Bare Metal Operator (BMO) can expose any secret from other namespaces via BMCEventSubscription CRD
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2025-29781.
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-2025-29781 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 378,156 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/metal3-io/baremetal-operator/apis🐹github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator/apisReal-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.
Baremetal Operator enables users to load Secret from arbitrary namespaces upon deployment of the namespace scoped Custom Resource BMCEventSubscription (BMCES). An adversary Kubernetes account with only namespace level roles (e.g. a tenant controlling a namespace) may create a BMCES in their authorized namespace and then load Secrets from their unauthorized namespaces to their authorized namespace via the Baremetal Operator controller's cluster scoped privileges, causing Secret leakage.
Patches
The patch makes BMO refuse to read Secrets from other namespace than where the corresponding Bare Metal Host (BMH) resource is. The patch does not change the BMCEventSubscription API in BMO, but stricter validation will deny the request at admission time. It will also prevent the controller reading such Secrets, in case the BMCES resource has already been deployed.
The issue exists for all versions of BMO, and is patched in BMO releases v0.9.1 and v0.8.1. Prior upgrading to patched BMO version, duplicate any existing Secret pointed to by BMCEventSubscription's httpHeadersRef to the same namespace where the corresponding BMH exists. After upgrade, remove the old Secrets.
Workarounds
Operator can configure BMO RBAC to be namespace scoped, instead of cluster scoped, to prevent BMO from accessing Secrets from other namespaces, and/or use WATCH_NAMESPACE configuration option to limit BMO to single namespace.
References
Credits
Metal3 Security Team thanks WHALEEYE and debuggerchen of Lab for Internet and Security Technology for responsible vulnerability disclosure.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator/apis | ≥ 0.9.0&&< 0.9.1 | 0.9.1go get github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator/apis@v0.9.1 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator/apis | all versions | 0.8.1go get github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator/apis@v0.8.1 |
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/apis, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator/apis to 0.9.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2025-29781 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-2025-29781 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2025-29781. 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.
This vulnerability is rated as Important for OpenShift Baremetal Operator, because RBAC is cluster-scoped and, while WATCH_NAMESPACE is set to openshift-machine-api by default, it is common for deployments to have a less restrictive value configured. It breaks Kubernetes' namespace isolation by allowing a user to…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.12 | openshift4/ose-baremetal-rhel8-operator:v4.12.0-202504241000.p0.g6817f4e.assembly.stream.el8 | RHSA-2025:4409 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.13 | openshift4/ose-baremetal-rhel8-operator:v4.13.0-202504231429.p0.g3f56e49.assembly.stream.el8 | RHSA-2025:4677 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.14 | openshift4/ose-baremetal-rhel8-operator:v4.14.0-202504220036.p0.g483d019.assembly.stream.el8 | RHSA-2025:4177 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.15 | openshift4/ose-baremetal-rhel9-operator:v4.15.0-202504281408.p0.g880ee05.assembly.stream.el9 | RHSA-2025:4422 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.16 | openshift4/ose-baremetal-rhel9-operator:v4.16.0-202504120704.p0.g84aeac3.assembly.stream.el9 | RHSA-2025:4008 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.17 | openshift4/ose-baremetal-rhel9-operator:v4.17.0-202504091537.p0.ge6e5d54.assembly.stream.el9 | RHSA-2025:3798 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.18 | openshift4/ose-baremetal-rhel9-operator:v4.18.0-202504090803.p0.g001d949.assembly.stream.el9 | RHSA-2025:3775 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.19 | openshift4/ose-cluster-baremetal-operator-rhel9:v4.19.0-202505200051.p0.gf64a5c1.assembly.stream.el9 | RHSA-2024:11038 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2025-29781 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2025-29781 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.