---
id: CVE-2025-4437
title: >-
  There's a vulnerability in the CRI-O application where when container is
  launched with securityContext.runAsUser specifying a non-existent user, CRI-O
  attempts to create the user, reading the container's entire /etc/passwd file
  into memo…
summary: >-
  There's a vulnerability in the CRI-O application where when container is
  launched with securityContext.runAsUser specifying a non-existent user, CRI-O
  attempts to create the user, reading the container's entire /etc/passwd file
  into memo…
severity: medium
cvss: 5.7
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'
cwe:
  - CWE-770
published: '2025-08-20'
updated: '2026-08-21'
source: NVD
sourceUrl: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-4437'
references:
  - url: 'https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-4437'
    label: secalert@redhat.com
  - url: 'https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2375084'
    label: secalert@redhat.com
tags:
  - nvd
epss: 0.00246
epssPercentile: 0.1407
ingestedAt: '2026-08-21T13:17:17.996Z'
---

## Overview

There's a vulnerability in the CRI-O application where when container is launched with securityContext.runAsUser specifying a non-existent user, CRI-O attempts to create the user, reading the container's entire /etc/passwd file into memory. If this file is excessively large, it can cause the a high memory consumption leading applications to be killed due to out-of-memory. As a result a denial-of-service can be achieved, possibly disrupting other pods and services running in the same host.

## Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.