CVE-2024-52799: Argo Workflows Chart: Excessive Privileges in Workflow Role

Severity: high (CVSS 8.2 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2024-11-21 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-250

Description

Argo Workflows Chart is used to set up argo and its needed dependencies through one command. Prior to 0.44.0, the workflow-role has excessive privileges, the worst being create pods/exec, which will allow kubectl exec into any Pod in the same namespace, i.e. arbitrary code execution within those Pods. If a user can be made to run a malicious template, their whole namespace can be compromised. This affects versions of the argo-workflows Chart that use appVersion: 3.4 and above, which no longer need these permissions for the only available Executor, Emissary. It could also affect users below 3.4 depending on their choice of Executor in those versions. This only affects the Helm Chart and not the upstream manifests. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.44.0.

Affected products

argoproj argo-helm: before 0.44.0 — fixed in 0.44.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: argoproj argo-helm 0.44.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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