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Bare Metal Operator (BMO) can expose any secret from other namespaces via BMCEventSubscription CRD

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Mar 17, 2025 in metal3-io/baremetal-operator • Updated Mar 19, 2025

Package

gomod github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator/apis (Go)

Affected versions

= 0.9.0
<= 0.8.0

Patched versions

0.9.1
0.8.1

Description

Impact

The Bare Metal Operator (BMO) implements a Kubernetes API for managing bare metal hosts in Metal3.

Baremetal Operator enables users to load Secret from arbitrary namespaces upon deployment of the namespace scoped Custom Resource BMCEventSubscription (BMCES). An adversary Kubernetes account with only namespace level roles (e.g. a tenant controlling a namespace) may create a BMCES in their authorized namespace and then load Secrets from their unauthorized namespaces to their authorized namespace via the Baremetal Operator controller's cluster scoped privileges, causing Secret leakage.

Patches

The patch makes BMO refuse to read Secrets from other namespace than where the corresponding Bare Metal Host (BMH) resource is. The patch does not change the BMCEventSubscription API in BMO, but stricter validation will deny the request at admission time. It will also prevent the controller reading such Secrets, in case the BMCES resource has already been deployed.

The issue exists for all versions of BMO, and is patched in BMO releases v0.9.1 and v0.8.1. Prior upgrading to patched BMO version, duplicate any existing Secret pointed to by BMCEventSubscription's httpHeadersRef to the same namespace where the corresponding BMH exists. After upgrade, remove the old Secrets.

Workarounds

Operator can configure BMO RBAC to be namespace scoped, instead of cluster scoped, to prevent BMO from accessing Secrets from other namespaces, and/or use WATCH_NAMESPACE configuration option to limit BMO to single namespace.

References

Credits

Metal3 Security Team thanks WHALEEYE and debuggerchen of Lab for Internet and Security Technology for responsible vulnerability disclosure.

References

@tuminoid tuminoid published to metal3-io/baremetal-operator Mar 17, 2025
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Mar 17, 2025
Reviewed Mar 17, 2025
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Mar 17, 2025
Last updated Mar 19, 2025

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Local
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N

EPSS score

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

This score estimates the probability of this vulnerability being exploited within the next 30 days. Data provided by FIRST.
(1st percentile)

CVE ID

CVE-2025-29781

GHSA ID

GHSA-c98h-7hp9-v9hq

Credits

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