CVE-2025-14525VulnerabilityPublished 26 Jan 2026

CVE-2025-14525: Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization 4 · Unthrottled Resource Allocation

Affects Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization 4Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.4 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 06:26 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.4Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 20% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Changed
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: Low
Availability: Low

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Changed: An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: Low: Modification of data is possible, but the attacker does not have control over the consequence of a modification, or the amount of modification is limited. The data modification does not have a direct, serious impact on the impacted component.
Availability: Low: Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the impacted component are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 26 Jan 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 2026-10-26.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Red HatRed Hat OpenShift Virtualization 4	Affected–	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2025-14525, organizations should implement the following specific measures: 1) Apply official patches or updates from Red Hat as soon as they become available to address the resource allocation flaw in kubevirt. 2) Implement strict access controls and monitoring within VMs to limit the ability of users to manipulate guest agent behavior, including restricting who can activate or interact with the guest agent. 3) Configure resource limits and throttling mechanisms on the virtualization management layer to prevent any single VM or guest agent from overwhelming system resources with excessive interface reports. 4) Monitor VM configuration update logs and guest agent activity for anomalies indicative of abuse or excessive reporting. 5) Employ network segmentation and isolation to reduce the risk of compromised VMs impacting management infrastructure. 6) Educate administrators and security teams about this vulnerability to ensure rapid detection and response if exploitation attempts occur. 7) Consider disabling the guest agent if it is not required for operational purposes, reducing the attack surface. These targeted mitigations go beyond generic advice by focusing on controlling guest agent behavior and resource management within the virtualization environment.

Description

A flaw was found in kubevirt. A user within a virtual machine (VM), if the guest agent is active, can exploit this by causing the agent to report an excessive number of network interfaces. This action can overwhelm the system's ability to store VM configuration updates, effectively blocking changes to the Virtual Machine Instance (VMI). This allows the VM user to restrict the VM administrator's ability to manage the VM, leading to a denial of service for administrative operations.

Impact

The primary impact of CVE-2025-14525 is a denial of service condition affecting the management plane of virtual machines in Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization 4 environments. By exhausting the system's capacity to handle VM configuration updates, attackers can prevent administrators from performing critical management tasks such as configuration changes, updates, or remediation actions on affected VMs. This can lead to operational disruptions, delayed incident response, and potential cascading effects in environments where VM agility and management are crucial. Since the vulnerability requires privileges within the VM, it is particularly concerning in multi-tenant or shared environments where users may have access to their own VMs but not the host or management infrastructure. Attackers could leverage this to hinder administrative control, complicating security operations and increasing the risk of persistent threats. The integrity of VM management is compromised as unauthorized users can block legitimate configuration changes. Availability is also impacted as administrative operations are effectively denied. Confidentiality is not directly affected. Organizations relying heavily on Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization 4 for cloud-native workloads, especially those with strict uptime and management requirements, face increased risk of operational disruption.

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 27 Feb 2026, 11:24 UTC

Technical details

References

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