CVE-2025-7195 — operator-sdk
MEDIUMCVE-2025-7195 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.4) Incorrect Default Permissions vulnerability in github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk. A fix is available for github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Operator-sdk: privilege escalation due to incorrect permissions of /etc/passwd
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-2025-7195.
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/operator-framework/operator-sdkReal-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
Early versions of Operator-SDK provided an insecure method to allow operator containers to run in environments that used a random UID. Operator-SDK before 0.15.2 provided a script, user_setup, which modifies the permissions of the /etc/passwd file to 664 during build time. Developers who used Operator-SDK before 0.15.2 to scaffold their operator may still be impacted by this if the insecure user_setup script is still being used to build new container images.
In affected images, the /etc/passwd file is created during build time with group-writable permissions and a group ownership of root (gid=0). An attacker who can execute commands within an affected container, even as a non-root user, may be able to leverage their membership in the root group to modify the /etc/passwd file. This could allow the attacker to add a new user with any arbitrary UID, including UID 0, leading to full root privileges within the container.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk | all versions | 0.15.2go get github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk@v0.15.2 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk to 0.15.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2025-7195 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.
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 Product Security has rated this vulnerability as moderate severity for affected products which run on OpenShift. The vulnerability allows for potential privilege escalation within a container, but OpenShift's default, multi-layered security posture effectively mitigates this risk. The primary controls include…
In Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, the following default configurations reduce the impact of this vulnerability. Security Context Constraints (SCCs): The default SCC, Restricted-v2, applies several crucial security settings to containers. Capabilities: drop: ALL removes all Linux capabilities, including SETUID and SETGID. This prevents a process from changing its user or group ID, a common step in privilege escalation attacks. The SETUID and SETGID capabilities can also be dropped explicitly if other capabilities are still required. allowPrivilegeEscalation: false ensures that a process cannot gain more privileges than its parent process. This blocks attempts by a compromised…Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2025-7195 (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| RHEL-9-CNV-4.17 | container-native-virtualization/cluster-network-addons-operator-rhel9:v4.17.39-2 | RHEA-2026:0129 |
| RHEL-9-CNV-4.18 | container-native-virtualization/cluster-network-addons-operator-rhel9:v4.18.25-3 | RHEA-2025:23478 |
| RHEL-9-CNV-4.20 | container-native-virtualization/cluster-network-addons-operator-rhel9:v4.20.3-3 | RHEA-2025:23406 |
| multicluster engine for Kubernetes 2.6 | multicluster-engine/addon-manager-rhel9:v2.6 | RHSA-2025:23528 |
| multicluster engine for Kubernetes 2.7 | multicluster-engine/addon-manager-rhel9:v2.7 | RHSA-2025:19958 |
| multicluster engine for Kubernetes 2.7 | multicluster-engine/addon-manager-rhel9:v2.7 | RHSA-2025:22683 |
| multicluster engine for Kubernetes 2.8 | multicluster-engine/addon-manager-rhel9:1765872406 | RHSA-2026:0722 |
| multicluster engine for Kubernetes 2.9 | multicluster-engine/addon-manager-rhel9:v2.9 | RHSA-2025:19332 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2025-7195 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.