Ironic Standalone Operator's controller modifies user-owned resources without consent

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Description

Impact

The Ironic Standalone Operator (IRSO) is the operator to maintain an Ironic deployment for Metal3. IRSO controller automatically adds its environment label to user-provided Secrets and ConfigMaps without the resource owner's consent. A high-privilege controller modifying user-owned resources constitutes an unauthorized integrity violation. Deployments running IrSO v0.7.0 through v0.8.1 that reference user-provided Secrets or ConfigMaps (TLS certificates, BMC CA, trusted CA) are affected.

Patches

Fixed in v0.9.0, v0.8.2, v0.7.3.

Workarounds

Manually add the environment label (ironic-standalone-operator.metal3.io/environment) to all user-provided Secrets and ConfigMaps before they are referenced in the Ironic resource. This prevents the controller from modifying them.

Resources

  • https://github.com/metal3-io/ironic-standalone-operator/pull/619
  • https://github.com/metal3-io/ironic-standalone-operator/pull/664
  • https://github.com/metal3-io/ironic-standalone-operator/pull/665

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
medium
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Open repository advisory ↗
Source code
Browse source ↗
Published (advisory)
2026-05-29 18:23:34 UTC
Updated
2026-05-29 18:23:36 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2026-05-29 18:23:34 UTC

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
4.3 3.1 —
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.

Identifiers

Type Value
GHSA GHSA-hfc8-w5f4-3x6m ↗

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-862 Missing Authorization

Affected packages (2)

Vulnerable version ranges and first patched releases as published by GitHub.

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
go github.com/metal3-io/ironic-standalone-operator <= 0.7.2 0.7.3 —
go github.com/metal3-io/ironic-standalone-operator >= 0.8.0, <= 0.8.1 0.8.2 —

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence