GHSA-5pf6-2qwx-pxm2 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-522 vulnerability in github.com/cloudevents/sdk-go/v2. A fix is available for github.com/cloudevents/sdk-go/v2 — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Go SDK for CloudEvents's use of WithRoundTripper to create a Client leaks credentials
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- 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-5pf6-2qwx-pxm2.
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-5pf6-2qwx-pxm2 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 378,567 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/cloudevents/sdk-go/v2Real-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
What kind of vulnerability is it? Who is impacted? Using cloudevents.WithRoundTripper to create a cloudevents.Client with an authenticated http.RoundTripper causes the go-sdk to leak credentials to arbitrary endpoints.
The relevant code is here (also inline, emphasis added):
<pre>if p.Client == nil { p.Client = **http.DefaultClient** } if p.roundTripper != nil { p.Client.**Transport = p.roundTripper** } </pre>When the transport is populated with an authenticated transport such as:
... then http.DefaultClient is modified with the authenticated transport and will start to send Authorization tokens to any endpoint it is used to contact!
Found and patched by: @tcnghia and @mattmoor
Patches
v.2.15.2
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/cloudevents/sdk-go/v2 | all versions | 2.15.2go get github.com/cloudevents/sdk-go/v2@v2.15.2 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/cloudevents/sdk-go/v2, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/cloudevents/sdk-go/v2 to 2.15.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-5pf6-2qwx-pxm2 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-5pf6-2qwx-pxm2 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-5pf6-2qwx-pxm2. 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 |
|---|---|---|
| OpenShift-Pipelines-1.15-RHEL-8 | openshift-pipelines-client-0:1.15.0-11496.el8 | RHEA-2024:4022 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.15 | openshift4/ose-console:v4.15.0-202410240435.p0.g51f940e.assembly.stream.el8 | RHSA-2024:8425 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.16 | openshift4/ose-cloud-event-proxy-rhel9:v4.16.0-202406131906.p0.g3279440.assembly.stream.el9 | RHSA-2024:0040 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.16 | openshift4/ose-console-rhel9:v4.16.0-202406140306.p0.gcb7b078.assembly.stream.el9 | RHSA-2024:0041 |
| RHOSS-1.32-RHEL-8 | openshift-serverless-1/client-kn-rhel8:1.11.2-4 | RHSA-2024:1333 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-5pf6-2qwx-pxm2 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-5pf6-2qwx-pxm2 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.