CVE-2025-13888 — Vulnerability in...

CRITICAL

OpenShift GitOps authenticated attackers can obtain cluster root access through forged ArgoCD custom resources

Published December 15, 2025Updated February 3, 2026Source: osv

Summary

A flaw was found in OpenShift GitOps. Namespace admins can create ArgoCD Custom Resources (CRs) that trick the system into granting them elevated permissions in other namespaces, including privileged namespaces. An authenticated attacker can then use these elevated permissions to create privileged workloads that run on master nodes, effectively giving them root access to the entire cluster.

Advisory Timeline

First published December 15, 2025 (301 days ago).
Last revised February 3, 2026 — 49 days after initial publication.

Remediation

Upgrade to the fixed version using your package manager.

Update github.com/redhat-developer/gitops-operator to 1.16.2 or later

go get github.com/redhat-developer/gitops-operator@v1.16.2

After upgrading, run your dependency scanner again to confirm the vulnerability is resolved.

Affected Packages (1)

Affects 1 ecosystem: go (1).

Package	Ecosystem	Affected	Fixed In
github.com/redhat-developer/gitops-operator	go	All versions	1.16.2

Vulnerability Classification

Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) identifiers for this vulnerability type.

CWE-266
View on MITRE

CVSS Score Breakdown

What the CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) 9.1 score means for each attack dimension.

Attack Vector

Network

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

High

User Interaction

None

Scope

Changed

Confidentiality

High

Integrity

High

Availability

High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

References

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2025-13888?: OpenShift GitOps authenticated attackers can obtain cluster root access through forged ArgoCD custom resources This vulnerability has been assigned a severity rating of CRITICAL (CVSS score: 9.1/10).
How do I check if my project is affected by CVE-2025-13888?: CVE-2025-13888 affects github.com/redhat-developer/gitops-operator. Use GeekWala's free vulnerability scanner to check your dependencies against CVE-2025-13888 and 200,000+ other known vulnerabilities.

Severity & Exploitability

CVSS Score

9.1

Exploitation is straightforward and causes maximum impact. Patch immediately.

Also Known As

GHSA-pcqx-8qww-7f4v

GO-2025-4242

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