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Fencer Vulns
critical 10.0

CVE-2022-29165 json

Argo CD will blindly trust JWT claims if anonymous access is enabled

published 2022-05-20 4 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GHSA-r642-gv9p-2wjj , GO-2022-0455 , EUVD-2022-5105

cvss
10.0
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.1%
EPSS 2.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 81%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Argo CD is a declarative, GitOps continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes. A critical vulnerability has been discovered in Argo CD starting with version 1.4.0 and prior to versions 2.1.15, 2.2.9, and 2.3.4 which would allow unauthenticated users to impersonate as any Argo CD user or role, including the `admin` user, by sending a specifically crafted JSON Web Token (JWT) along with the request. In order for this vulnerability to be exploited, anonymous access to the Argo CD instance must have been enabled. In a default Argo CD installation, anonymous access is disabled. The vulnerability can be exploited to impersonate as any user or role, including the built-in `admin` account regardless of whether it is enabled or disabled. Also, the attacker does not need an account on the Argo CD instance in order to exploit this. If anonymous access to the instance is enabled, an attacker can escalate their privileges, effectively allowing them to gain the same privileges on the cluster as the Argo CD instance, which is cluster admin in a default installation. This will allow the attacker to create, manipulate and delete any resource on the cluster. They may also exfiltrate data by deploying malicious workloads with elevated privileges, thus bypassing any redaction of sensitive data otherwise enforced by the Argo CD API. A patch for this vulnerability has been released in Argo CD versions 2.3.4, 2.2.9, and 2.1.15. As a workaround, one may disable anonymous access, but upgrading to a patched version is preferable.

Patch / fix

  • go github.com/argoproj/argo-cd/v2 2.1.15, 2.2.9, 2.3.4
  • go github.com/argoproj/argo-cd 2.1.15
  • argoproj argo_cd 2.1.15, 2.2.9, 2.3.4

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2022-29165 updated cvss 10.0

argocd: ArgoCD will blindly trust JWT claims if anonymous access is enabled

  • Red Hat OpenShift GitOps 1.3 openshift-gitops-1/dex-rhel8 v1.3.9-3, openshift-gitops-1/dex-rhel8 v1.3.10-1, openshift-gitops-1/argocd-rhel8 v1.3.9-3, openshift-gitops-1/gitops-rhel8 v1.3.9-3, openshift-gitops-1/argocd-rhel8 v1.3.10-1, openshift-gitops-1/gitops-rhel8 v1.3.10-1, +8 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2022:4671
  • Red Hat OpenShift GitOps 1.4 openshift-gitops-1/dex-rhel8 v1.4.7-2, openshift-gitops-1/argocd-rhel8 v1.4.7-2, openshift-gitops-1/gitops-rhel8 v1.4.7-2, openshift-gitops-1/kam-delivery-rhel8 v1.4.7-2, openshift-gitops-1/applicationset-rhel8 v1.4.7-2, openshift-gitops-1/gitops-rhel8-operator v1.4.7-2, +1 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2022:4692
  • Red Hat OpenShift GitOps 1.5 openshift-gitops-1/dex-rhel8 v1.5.1-4, openshift-gitops-1/argocd-rhel8 v1.5.1-4, openshift-gitops-1/gitops-rhel8 v1.5.1-4, openshift-gitops-1/kam-delivery-rhel8 v1.5.1-4, openshift-gitops-1/applicationset-rhel8 v1.5.1-4, openshift-gitops-1/gitops-rhel8-operator v1.5.1-4, +1 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2022:4690

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
total
Assessed
18 mo ago

Exploit prediction

2.10% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 81% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 10.0 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 10.0 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 9.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C
GitHub 3.1 10.0 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
go github.com/argoproj/argo-cd/v2
>=2.3.0, <2.3.4
>=2.2.0, <2.2.9
<2.1.15
2.3.4
2.2.9
2.1.15
go github.com/argoproj/argo-cd
<2.1.15
all versions
2.1.15

Affected products

  • argoproj argo-cd

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-200 Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor
  • CWE-287 Improper Authentication
  • CWE-290 Authentication Bypass by Spoofing

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.