CVE-2024-53862

Argo Workflows Allows Access to Archived Workflows with Fake Token in `client` mode

HIGH
7.5
CVSS Score
Published: December 2, 2024 at 04:08 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 08:09 AM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorArgo Workflows

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Severity
HIGH7.5
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.7%
SSVC
PoC

Description

Argo Workflows is an open source container-native workflow engine for orchestrating parallel jobs on Kubernetes. When using `--auth-mode=client`, Archived Workflows can be retrieved with a fake or spoofed token via the GET Workflow endpoint: `/api/v1/workflows/{namespace}/{name}` or when using `--auth-mode=sso`, all Archived Workflows can be retrieved with a valid token via the GET Workflow endpoint: `/api/v1/workflows/{namespace}/{name}`. No authentication is performed by the Server itself on `client` tokens. Authentication & authorization is instead delegated to the k8s API server. However, the Workflow Archive does not interact with k8s, and so any token that looks valid will be considered authenticated, even if it is not a k8s token or even if the token has no RBAC for Argo. To handle the lack of pass-through k8s authN/authZ, the Workflow Archive specifically does the equivalent of a `kubectl auth can-i` check for respective methods. In 3.5.7 and 3.5.8, the auth check was accidentally removed on the GET Workflow endpoint's fallback to archived workflows on these lines, allowing archived workflows to be retrieved with a fake token. This vulnerability is fixed in 3.6.2 and 3.5.13.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v ≤ 3.5.7v ≤ 3.6.0-rc1v < 3.5.13v < 3.6.23.5.7 ≤ v < 3.5.133.6.0 ≤ v < 3.6.2
Affected range stops below 3.5.13, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
Affected range stops below 3.6.2, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCPoCAutomatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
HIGH
Integrity
NONE
Availability
NONE
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusANALYZED
CWE
CWE-200CWE-290

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