GHSA-6rx9-889q-vv2r BIT-helm-2022-23524 CVE-2022-23524 GO-2022-1167
Helm vulnerable to denial of service through string value parsing
- Severity
- 5.3 / 10
- High · CVSS 3.1
- Exploit chance (EPSS)
- 0.81%
- Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 56.94% of scored vulnerabilities.
- Known exploited
- No
- Not in CISA's catalog
- Weakness
- CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
- Fix
3.10.3- Upgrade helm.sh/helm/v3 to this version or later
Description
Fuzz testing, by Ada Logics and sponsored by the CNCF, identified input to functions in the strvals package that can cause a stack overflow. In Go, a stack overflow cannot be recovered from. Applications that use functions from the strvals package in the Helm SDK can have a Denial of Service attack when they use this package and it panics.
Impact
The strvals package contains a parser that turns strings into Go structures. For example, the Helm client has command line flags like --set, --set-string, and others that enable the user to pass in strings that are merged into the values. The strvals package converts these strings into structures Go can work with. Some string inputs can cause array data structures to be created causing a stack overflow.
Applications that use the strvals package in the Helm SDK to parse user supplied input can suffer a Denial of Service when that input causes a panic that cannot be recovered from.
The Helm Client will panic with input to --set, --set-string, and other value setting flags that causes a stack overflow. Helm is not a long running service so the panic will not affect future uses of the Helm client.
Patches
This issue has been resolved in 3.10.3.
Workarounds
SDK users can validate strings supplied by users won't create large arrays causing significant memory usage before passing them to the strvals functions.
For more information
Helm's security policy is spelled out in detail in our SECURITY document.
Credits
Disclosed by Ada Logics in a fuzzing audit sponsored by CNCF.
Affected versions
Go
| Package | Vulnerable | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| helm.sh/helm/v3 | < 3.10.3 |
3.10.3 |
How to fix
Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.
helm.sh/helm/v3 Go → 3.10.3
- go
go get helm.sh/helm/v3@v3.10.3 && go mod tidy
Severity breakdown
CVSS 3.1 5.3
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- Low
Weakness
CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.
How to prevent it
- Architecture and Design: Design throttling mechanisms into the system architecture. The best protection is to limit the amount of resources that an unauthorized user can cause to be expended. A strong authentication and access control model will help prevent such attacks from occurring in the first place. The login application should be protected against DoS attacks as much as possible. Limiting the database access, perhaps by caching result sets, can help minimize the resources expended. To further limit the potential for a DoS attack, consider tracking the rate of requests received from users and blocking requests that exceed a defined rate threshold.
- Architecture and Design: Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either: recognizes the attack and denies that user further access for a given amount of time, or uniformly throttles all requests in order to make it more difficult to consume resources more quickly than they can again be freed. The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question. The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute -- and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.
- Architecture and Design: Ensure that protocols have specific limits of scale placed on them.
- Implementation: Ensure that all failures in resource allocation place the system into a safe posture.
References
Advisories
Packages
Other links
Timeline
- Published
- Last updated by the source
- Latest EPSS score
Related advisories
| Advisory | Severity | Why it's related |
|---|---|---|
| GHSA-hr2v-4r36-88hr Helm Chart extraction output directory collapse via `Chart.yaml` name dot-segment | Medium | Also affects helm.sh/helm/v3 |
| GHSA-f9f8-9pmf-xv68 Helm May Panic Due To Incorrect YAML Content | Medium | Also affects helm.sh/helm/v3 |
| GHSA-9h84-qmv7-982p Helm Charts with Specific JSON Schema Values Can Cause Memory Exhaustion | Medium | Also affects helm.sh/helm/v3 |
| GHSA-557j-xg8c-q2mm Helm vulnerable to Code Injection through malicious chart.yaml content | High | Also affects helm.sh/helm/v3 |
| GHSA-5xqw-8hwv-wg92 Helm Allows A Specially Crafted JSON Schema To Cause A Stack Overflow | Medium | Also affects helm.sh/helm/v3 |
| GHSA-4hfp-h4cw-hj8p Helm Allows A Specially Crafted Chart Archive To Cause Out Of Memory Termination | Medium | Also affects helm.sh/helm/v3 |
| GHSA-r53h-jv2g-vpx6 Helm's Missing YAML Content Leads To Panic | High | Also affects helm.sh/helm/v3 |
| GHSA-v53g-5gjp-272r Helm dependency management path traversal | Medium | Also affects helm.sh/helm/v3 |
Credits: Ada Logics in a fuzzing audit sponsored by CNCF
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