CVE-2022-31016

Workarounds

There is no workaround besides upgrading.

To mitigate the issue, carefully limit 1) who can configure repos (determined by RBAC), 2) which repos are allowed (determined by Project limitations), and 3) who has push access to those repos (determined by your SCM provider configuration).

Credits

Disclosed by ADA Logics in a security audit of the Argo project sponsored by CNCF and facilitated by OSTIF. Thanks to Adam Korczynski and David Korczynski for their work on the audit.

For more information

• Open an issue in the Argo CD issue tracker or discussions
• Join us on Slack in channel #argo-cd

All versions of Argo CD starting with v0.7.0 are vulnerable to an uncontrolled memory consumption bug, allowing an authorized malicious user to crash the repo-server service. The repo-server is a critical component of Argo CD, so crashing the repo-server effectively denies core Argo CD services (such as syncing Application updates).

To achieve denial of service, the attacker must be an authenticated Argo CD user authorized to deploy Applications from a repository which contains (or can be made to contain) a large file.

Crafted input forces the application to consume excessive CPU, memory, or other resources, degrading or denying service. Typical impact: denial of service.

CVE-2022-31016 has a CVSS score of 6.5 (Medium). The vector is network-reachable, low privileges required, and no user interaction. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. A fixed version is available (2.1.16, 2.2.10, 2.3.5, 2.4.1); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.

Kodem intelligence

A patch for this vulnerability has been released in the following Argo CD versions:

• v2.4.1
• v2.3.5
• v2.2.10
• v2.1.16

The patch introduces a new reposerver.max.combined.directory.manifests.size config parameter, which you should tune before upgrading in production. It caps the maximum total file size of .yaml/.yml/.json files in directory-type (raw manifest) Applications. The default max is 10M per Application. This max is designed to keep any single app from consuming more than 3G of memory in the repo-server (manifests consume more space in memory than on disk). The 300x ratio assumes a maliciously-crafted manifest file. If you only want to protect against accidental excessive memory use, it is probably safe to use a smaller ratio.

If your organization uses directory-type Applications with very many manifests or very large manifests then check the size of those manifests and tune the config parameter before deploying this change to production. When testing, make sure to do a "hard refresh" in either the CLI or UI to test your directory-type App. That will make sure you're using the new max logic instead of relying on cached manifest responses from Redis.

1. What is CVE-2022-31016? CVE-2022-31016 is a medium-severity uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability in github.com/argoproj/argo-cd (go), affecting versions >= 0.7.0, <= 1.8.7. It is fixed in 2.1.16, 2.2.10, 2.3.5, 2.4.1. Crafted input forces the application to consume excessive CPU, memory, or other resources, degrading or denying service.
2. How severe is CVE-2022-31016? CVE-2022-31016 has a CVSS score of 6.5 (Medium). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
3. Which packages are affected by CVE-2022-31016?
   • github.com/argoproj/argo-cd (go) (versions >= 0.7.0, <= 1.8.7)
   • github.com/argoproj/argo-cd/v2 (go) (versions < 2.1.16)
4. Is there a fix for CVE-2022-31016? Yes. CVE-2022-31016 is fixed in 2.1.16, 2.2.10, 2.3.5, 2.4.1. Upgrade to this version or later.
5. Is CVE-2022-31016 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2022-31016 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
6. What actually determines whether CVE-2022-31016 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
7. How do I fix CVE-2022-31016?
   • Upgrade github.com/argoproj/argo-cd to 2.1.16 or later
   • Upgrade github.com/argoproj/argo-cd/v2 to 2.1.16 or later
   • Upgrade github.com/argoproj/argo-cd/v2 to 2.2.10 or later
   • Upgrade github.com/argoproj/argo-cd/v2 to 2.3.5 or later
   • Upgrade github.com/argoproj/argo-cd/v2 to 2.4.1 or later