GHSA-2cgq-h8xw-2v5j is a high-severity (CVSS 7.2) CWE-77 vulnerability in github.com/cri-o/cri-o. A fix is available for github.com/cri-o/cri-o — see the affected versions and patch details below.
CRI-O vulnerable to an arbitrary systemd property injection
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 GHSA-2cgq-h8xw-2v5j.
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
GHSA-2cgq-h8xw-2v5j 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 377,166 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/cri-o/cri-o🐹github.com/cri-o/cri-o🐹github.com/cri-o/cri-oReal-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
On CRI-O, it looks like an arbitrary systemd property can be injected via a Pod annotation:
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: poc-arbitrary-systemd-property-injection
annotations:
# I believe that ExecStart with an arbitrary command works here too,
# but I haven't figured out how to marshalize the ExecStart struct to gvariant string.
org.systemd.property.SuccessAction: "'poweroff-force'"
spec:
containers:
- name: hello
image: [quay.io/podman/hello](http://quay.io/podman/hello)
This means that any user who can create a pod with an arbitrary annotation may perform an arbitrary action on the host system.
Tested with CRI-O v1.24 on minikube. I didn't test the latest v1.29 because it is incompatible with minikube: https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/18367
Thanks to Cédric Clerget (GitHub ID @cclerget) for finding out that CRI-O just passes pod annotations to OCI annotations: https://github.com/opencontainers/runc/pull/3923#discussion_r1532292536
CRI-O has to filter out annotations that have the prefix "org.systemd.property."
See also:
- https://github.com/opencontainers/runtime-spec/blob/main/features.md#unsafe-annotations-in-configjson
- https://github.com/opencontainers/runc/pull/4217
Workarounds
Unfortunately, the only workarounds would involve an external mutating webhook to disallow these annotations
References
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/cri-o/cri-o | ≥ 1.29.0&&< 1.29.4 | 1.29.4go get github.com/cri-o/cri-o@v1.29.4 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/cri-o/cri-o | ≥ 1.28.0&&< 1.28.6 | 1.28.6go get github.com/cri-o/cri-o@v1.28.6 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/cri-o/cri-o | all versions | 1.27.6go get github.com/cri-o/cri-o@v1.27.6 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/cri-o/cri-o, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/cri-o/cri-o to 1.29.4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-2cgq-h8xw-2v5j 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 GHSA-2cgq-h8xw-2v5j can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-2cgq-h8xw-2v5j. 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.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.12 | cri-o-0:1.25.5-16.2.rhaos4.12.gitcb09013.el8 | RHSA-2024:2784 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.13 | cri-o-0:1.26.5-16.2.rhaos4.13.git67e2a9d.el8 | RHSA-2024:3496 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.14 | cri-o-0:1.27.6-2.rhaos4.14.gitb3bd0bf.el8 | RHSA-2024:2672 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.15 | cri-o-0:1.28.6-2.rhaos4.15.git77bbb1c.el8 | RHSA-2024:2669 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-2cgq-h8xw-2v5j in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-2cgq-h8xw-2v5j across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.