Headline
GHSA-856v-8qm2-9wjv: operator-sdk: privilege escalation due to incorrect permissions of /etc/passwd
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 was 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.
- GitHub Advisory Database
- GitHub Reviewed
- CVE-2025-7195
operator-sdk: privilege escalation due to incorrect permissions of /etc/passwd
Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Aug 7, 2025 to the GitHub Advisory Database • Updated Aug 7, 2025
Package
gomod github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk (Go)
Affected versions
< 0.15.2
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 was 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.
References
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-7195
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-7195
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2376300
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database
Aug 7, 2025