CVE-2025-22868VulnerabilityPublished 20 Mar 2025Updated 25 Oct 2026

Red Hat Security Advisory: Gatekeeper v3.15.4

Affects Red HatSource GCVE Database

Mentioned vulnerabilities

CVE-2025-22869

Not known to be exploited : upgrade to 3.15.4 soon.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 22:09 UTC

Severity

High

Rated by Threat Radar · No CVSS score from NVD or the CNA

EPSS: 0.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 58% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 3.15.4

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 20 Mar 2025
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 2026-10-25.

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

Upgrade Red Hat to 3.15.4.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Red Hat Product Security Red Hat	Affected >=3.15.0 <3.15.4 Red Hat gatekeeper gatekeeper 3.15 for RHEL 9 s390x gatekeeper/gatekeeper-rhel9@sha256:b893c6fd9d1414efd34c51fdc08795c9ddf5e73053c5cc1b742eea04c6a1d4bf_s390x	Fixed in 3.15.4

AI-suggested

Red Hat has released Gatekeeper version 3.15.4 which includes fixes for CVE-2025-22868 and CVE-2025-22869. Users should upgrade affected Gatekeeper installations from versions >=3.15.0 and <3.15.4 to version 3.15.4 or later. The vendor advisory does not indicate any temporary workarounds or that no action is required. Follow the official upgrade documentation and use supported Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes subscriptions for support.

Description

Gatekeeper v3.15.4 Gatekeeper is a validating webhook with auditing capabilities that can enforce custom resource definition-based policies that are run with the Open Policy Agent (OPA). Gatekeeper is supported through a Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes subscription. Starting in v3.15, the following namespaces are exempt from admission control: - kube-* - multicluster-engine - hypershift - hive - rhacs-operator - open-cluster-* - openshift-* To disable the default exempt namespaces, set the namespaces you want on the object. Security fix(es): * golang.org/x/oauth2: Unexpected memory consumption during token parsing in golang.org/x/oauth2 (CVE-2025-22868) * golang.org/x/crypto/ssh: Denial of Service in the Key Exchange of golang.org/x/crypto/ssh (CVE-2025-22869) Additional Release Notes: * v3.15.0 https://github.com/open-policy-agent/gatekeeper/releases/tag/v3.15.0 * v3.15.1 https://github.com/open-policy-agent/gatekeeper/releases/tag/v3.15.1

Impact

The vulnerabilities could lead to resource exhaustion (memory consumption) or denial of service conditions within Gatekeeper when processing OAuth2 tokens or SSH key exchanges. This may disrupt Gatekeeper's validating webhook functionality and policy enforcement in Kubernetes environments. No known exploits in the wild have been reported. The impact is rated as high severity by Red Hat due to potential service disruption.

Summary

Gatekeeper versions >=3.15.0 and <3.15.4 are affected by two security issues in third-party Go libraries: CVE-2025-22868 involves unexpected memory consumption during token parsing in golang.org/x/oauth2, and CVE-2025-22869 is a denial of service vulnerability in the key exchange mechanism of golang.org/x/crypto/ssh. These issues could impact Gatekeeper's operation when processing OAuth2 tokens or SSH key exchanges. Red Hat released Gatekeeper v3.15.4 to remediate these vulnerabilities. The advisory notes that certain Kubernetes namespaces are exempt from admission control starting in v3.15, but this is unrelated to the security fixes. The vendor advisory is authoritative and provides upgrade instructions and references to release notes.

CWE-1286Improper Validation of Syntactic Correctness of Input (opens in a new tab)
Base weakness
The product receives input that is expected to be well-formed - i.e., to comply with a certain syntax - but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the input complies with the syntax.
Implementation · Input Validation
Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
XML Security (opens in a new tab)
Mass Assignment (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V13.3.1 (opens in a new tab)
V5.1.4 (opens in a new tab)
V5.1.3 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
SQL Injection (opens in a new tab)
NoSQL Injection (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).
CWE-770Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #25
The product allocates a reusable resource or group of resources on behalf of an actor without imposing any intended restrictions on the size or number of resources that can be allocated.
Requirements
Clearly specify the minimum and maximum expectations for capabilities, and dictate which behaviors are acceptable when resource allocation reaches limits.
Architecture and Design
Limit the amount of resources that are accessible to unprivileged users. Set per-user limits for resources. Allow the system administrator to define these limits. Be careful to avoid CWE-410.
Architecture and Design
Design throttling mechanisms into the system architecture. The best protection is to limit the amount of resources that an unauthorized user can cause to be expended.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Abuse Case (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V8.1.4 (opens in a new tab)
V13.4.1 (opens in a new tab)
V11.1.4 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XML Ping of the Death (opens in a new tab)
Exponential Data Expansion (opens in a new tab)
Serialized Data Parameter Blowup (opens in a new tab)
Serialized Data with Nested Payloads (opens in a new tab)
Oversized Serialized Data Payloads (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 14 Aug 2026, 22:14 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-1286, CWE-770

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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