argoproj/argo-workflows · Security
Argo Vulnerable to Unauthenticated Memory Exhaustion (DoS) in Webhook Interceptor
- GHSA ID
- GHSA-jcc8-g2q4-9fxq
- CVE ID
- CVE-2026-42294
- Severity
- high
- Published
- Updated
- CVSS
- 7.5 · CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- CVSS v3
- 7.5 · CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- CVSS v4
- 8.2 · CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Description
Severity: Medium
Component: Webhook Interceptor (server/auth/webhook)
Vulnerability Type: Denial of Service (DoS)
Description
The Webhook Interceptor loads the entire request body into memory before authenticating the request or verifying its signature. This occurs on the /api/v1/events/ endpoint, which is publicly accessible (albeit intended for webhooks). An attacker can send a request with an extremely large body (e.g., multiple gigabytes), causing the Argo Server to allocate excessive memory, potentially leading to an Out-Of-Memory (OOM) crash and denial of service.
Vulnerable Code
In server/auth/webhook/interceptor.go:
func (i *WebhookInterceptor) addWebhookAuthorization(r *http.Request, kube kubernetes.Interface) error {
// ... basic checks ...
// Vulnerability: Reads entire body into memory unconditionally
buf, _ := io.ReadAll(r.Body)
defer func() { r.Body = io.NopCloser(bytes.NewBuffer(buf)) }()
// ... subsequent logic finds correct service account and secret ...
// ... verification happens later ...
}
The io.ReadAll call happens before the signature verification loop.
Impact
- Service Availability: An attacker can crash the Argo Server, disrupting workflow execution and API access for all users.
PoC (Conceptual)
- Target the webhook endpoint:
POST /api/v1/events/some-namespace - Send a
Content-Length: 1000000000(1GB) header. - Stream 1GB of random data.
- Monitor server memory usage. It will spike until 1GB is allocated or the process crashes.
Recommendation
- Limit Body Size: Enforce a strict limit on webhook body size (e.g., 10MB) using
http.MaxBytesReader. - Streaming Verification: If possible, verify the signature in a streaming fashion or use a temporary file for large payloads (though typically webhooks are small).
CWEs
- CWE-770 · Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
References
- https://github.com/argoproj/argo-workflows/security/advisories/GHSA-jcc8-g2q4-9fxq ↗
- https://github.com/argoproj/argo-workflows/commit/7abb4de6c3599e2d5d960ba4d5de4cf1df109965 ↗
- https://github.com/argoproj/argo-workflows/releases/tag/v4.0.5 ↗
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-42294 ↗
- https://github.com/argoproj/argo-workflows/releases/tag/v3.7.14 ↗
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-42294 ↗
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2468443 ↗
- https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/2026/cve-2026-42294.json ↗
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-jcc8-g2q4-9fxq ↗