CVE-2025-57851 (GCVE-0-2025-57851)
Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2026-04-08 13:55 – Updated: 2026-04-08 15:18
VLAI?
Title
Mce: privilege escalation via excessive /etc/passwd permissions
Summary
A container privilege escalation flaw was found in certain Multicluster Engine for Kubernetes images. This issue stems from the /etc/passwd file being created with group-writable permissions during build time. In certain conditions, an attacker who can execute commands within an affected container, even as a non-root user, can 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.
Severity ?
6.4 (Medium)
CWE
- CWE-276 - Incorrect Default Permissions
Assigner
References
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Impacted products
| Vendor | Product | Version | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red Hat | Multicluster Engine for Kubernetes |
cpe:/a:redhat:multicluster_engine |
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Date Public ?
2026-04-08 13:45
Credits
Red Hat would like to thank Antony Di Scala and Michael Whale for reporting this issue.
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Sightings
| Author | Source | Type | Date |
|---|
Nomenclature
- Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
- Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
- Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
- Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
- Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
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