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GHSA-856v-8qm2-9wjv

GitHub Security Advisory

operator-sdk: privilege escalation due to incorrect permissions of /etc/passwd

✓ GitHub Reviewed MODERATE Has CVE

Advisory Details

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.

Affected Packages

Go github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk
Affected versions: 0 (fixed in 0.15.2)

Related CVEs

Key Information

GHSA ID
GHSA-856v-8qm2-9wjv
Published
August 7, 2025 9:31 PM
Last Modified
November 20, 2025 9:30 PM
CVSS Score
5.0 /10
Primary Ecosystem
Go
Primary Package
github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk
GitHub Reviewed
✓ Yes

Dataset

Last updated: November 23, 2025 6:29 AM

Data from GitHub Advisory Database. This information is provided for research and educational purposes.