CVE-2025-2586 in OpenShift Lightspeed Service
Summary
by MITRE • 03/31/2025
A flaw was found in the OpenShift Lightspeed Service, which is vulnerable to unauthenticated API request flooding. Repeated queries to non-existent endpoints inflate metrics storage and processing, consuming excessive resources. This issue can lead to monitoring system degradation, increased disk usage, and potential service unavailability. Since the issue does not require authentication, an external attacker can exhaust CPU, RAM, and disk space, impacting both application and cluster stability.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 06/26/2026
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2025-2586 resides within the OpenShift Lightspeed Service, representing a significant security weakness that undermines system integrity and operational resilience. This flaw manifests as an insufficient access control mechanism that permits any external entity to submit API requests without authentication requirements, creating an avenue for malicious actors to exploit the service's resource consumption patterns.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from the service's failure to enforce proper authentication checks on API endpoints, particularly those handling metrics collection and processing functions. When unauthorized requests are made to non-existent endpoints, the system continues to process these queries through its monitoring infrastructure, resulting in exponential growth of stored metrics data. This design flaw directly aligns with CWE-305 authentication bypass weakness, where the system fails to properly verify user credentials before granting access to protected resources.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple resource exhaustion, creating cascading effects that compromise cluster stability and application performance. As attackers flood the system with repeated queries to non-existent endpoints, the monitoring infrastructure becomes overwhelmed with redundant processing tasks, leading to increased disk usage patterns that can ultimately result in storage exhaustion. The resource consumption affects multiple system components including CPU cycles, memory allocation, and disk space utilization, creating a multi-faceted attack vector that can destabilize the entire OpenShift cluster environment.
This vulnerability directly relates to several ATT&CK techniques including T1496 resource exhaustion and T1566 credential harvesting, where attackers can leverage the lack of authentication to consume system resources while potentially gathering information about the service's operational structure. The unauthenticated nature of the attack means that external threat actors can operate without detection, making this vulnerability particularly dangerous for production environments where cluster stability is paramount.
Mitigation strategies should focus on implementing robust authentication mechanisms for all API endpoints, particularly those handling monitoring and metrics processing functions. Network-level controls such as rate limiting and IP-based restrictions can help prevent excessive request volumes from single sources. The service should also implement proper endpoint validation and logging mechanisms to detect anomalous request patterns that could indicate malicious activity. Additionally, monitoring systems should be configured to alert administrators when resource consumption exceeds predefined thresholds, enabling proactive response to potential exploitation attempts. Organizations should also consider implementing automated response mechanisms that can temporarily block suspicious IP addresses or reduce service availability for overloaded endpoints to prevent complete system degradation.