Helm vulnerable to Denial of service via NULL Pointer Dereference

published 2022-12-14 3 y ago modified 2026-09-10 1 mo ago also BIT-helm-2022-23525 , EUVD-2022-7511 , GHSA-53c4-hhmh-vw5q , GO-2022-1165

cvss: 5.3; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.9%; EPSS 0.9% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 59%
public exploits: 0; none known

Helm is a tool for managing Charts, pre-configured Kubernetes resources. Versions prior to 3.10.3 are subject to NULL Pointer Dereference in the _repo_package. The _repo_ package contains a handler that processes the index file of a repository. For example, the Helm client adds references to chart repositories where charts are managed. The _repo_ package parses the index file of the repository and loads it into structures Go can work with. Some index files can cause array data structures to be created causing a memory violation. Applications that use the _repo_ package in the Helm SDK to parse an index file can suffer a Denial of Service when that input causes a panic that cannot be recovered from. The Helm Client will panic with an index file that causes a memory violation panic. Helm is not a long running service so the panic will not affect future uses of the Helm client. This issue has been patched in 3.10.3. SDK users can validate index files that are correctly formatted before passing them to the _repo_ functions.

Patch / fix

fixed in 3 distros 3 links 1

go helm.sh/helm/v3 3.10.3
bitnami helm 3.10.3
helm helm 3.10.3

suse opensuse azure linux

helm SLE Module for Package Hub 15 SP4, SLE Module for Containers 15 SP4, openSUSE Leap 15.4 +1 more 3.10.3-150000.1.13.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2022:4606-1

helm3 openSUSE Tumbleweed 3.19.2-1.1
helm openSUSE Tumbleweed 3.10.3-2.1
cmctl openSUSE Tumbleweed 1.10.2-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2025:15779-1 openSUSE-SU-2024:12572-1 openSUSE-SU-2024:12603-1

helm CBL-Mariner 2.0 3.9.4-4

azure linux advisories AZL-11655

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

github.com/helm/helm@638ebff commit

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-2022-23525 updated 2026-11-05 cvss 7.5

helm: Denial of service through through repository index file

Red Hat cert-manager Operator for Red Hat OpenShift cert-manager/jetstack-cert-manager-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift Developer Tools and Services jenkins-operator-container Red Hat OpenShift Serverless openshift-serverless-1/ingress-rhel8-operator
affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
Red Hat 3scale API Management Platform 2 3scale-amp2/3scale-rhel7-operator
affected: no fix available
Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2 rhacm2/search-rhel8
affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security 3 advanced-cluster-security/rhacs-docs-rhel8, advanced-cluster-security/rhacs-main-rhel8, advanced-cluster-security/rhacs-roxctl-rhel8, advanced-cluster-security/rhacs-rhel8-operator, advanced-cluster-security/rhacs-central-db-rhel8
affected: no fix available
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift4/ose-console, openshift4/ose-helm-operator, openshift4/ose-ansible-operator, openshift4/ose-operator-sdk-rhel8, openshift4/special-resource-rhel8-operator, openshift4/ose-metering-helm-container-rhel8
affected: no fix available, no fix planned “Will not fix”
Red Hat Openshift Container Storage 4 ocs4/rook-ceph-rhel8-operator
affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.12 openshift4/metallb-rhel8-operator v4.12.0-202303301557.p0.g270d2eb.assembly.stream
fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:1646
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.13 openshift4/ose-olm-rukpak-rhel8 v4.13.0-202304190216.p0.g66b3e55.assembly.stream, openshift4/oc-mirror-plugin-rhel8 v4.13.0-202305091542.p0.gbee629a.assembly.stream
fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:1326

show 2 more

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.14 openshift4/ose-pod v4.14.0-202310210404.p0.gf67aeb3.assembly.stream, openshift4/ose-telemeter v4.14.0-202310201027.p0.gc8b876a.assembly.stream, openshift4/ose-prometheus v4.14.0-202310201027.p0.gbcb475d.assembly.stream, openshift4/ose-thanos-rhel8 v4.14.0-202310201027.p0.g175a630.assembly.stream, openshift4/ose-hyperkube-rhel9 v4.14.0-202310210404.p0.gf67aeb3.assembly.stream, openshift4/ose-olm-rukpak-rhel8 v4.14.0-202310201027.p0.gdaa5073.assembly.stream, +41 more
fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:5006
Red Hat Cryostat 2 cryostat-tech-preview/cryostat-rhel8-operator Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security 4 advanced-cluster-security/rhacs-main-rhel8 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.12 openshift4/ose-ptp v4.12.0-202303301557.p0.g79f4296.assembly.stream, openshift4/frr-rhel8 v4.12.0-202303301557.p0.g1c36ecd.assembly.stream, openshift4/metallb-rhel8 v4.12.0-202303301557.p0.ga917ee0.assembly.stream, openshift4/ose-sriov-cni v4.12.0-202303301557.p0.gbf74bbd.assembly.stream, openshift4/ose-descheduler v4.12.0-202303301557.p0.ge8e0600.assembly.stream, openshift4/ose-ptp-operator v4.12.0-202303301557.p0.gc0bdc7c.assembly.stream, +42 more Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.13 openshift4/ose-cli v4.13.0-202304190216.p0.g92b1a3d.assembly.stream, openshift4/ose-pod v4.13.0-202304211155.p0.gb404935.assembly.stream, openshift4/ose-etcd v4.13.0-202304190216.p0.gf70da9d.assembly.stream, openshift4/ose-tests v4.13.0-202305031828.p0.g893ae57.assembly.stream, openshift4/ose-console v4.13.0-202305031828.p0.ga551d28.assembly.stream, openshift4/ose-coredns v4.13.0-202304190216.p0.g5560e4a.assembly.stream, +173 more Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.14 rhcos 414.92.202310210434-0, openshift4/ose-cli v4.14.0-202310201027.p0.g0c63f9d.assembly.stream, openshift4/ose-tests v4.14.0-202310201027.p0.g948001a.assembly.stream, openshift4/ose-console v4.14.0-202310201027.p0.gc16ab01.assembly.stream, openshift4/ose-coredns v4.14.0-202310201027.p0.gfd70cf1.assembly.stream, openshift4/ose-deployer v4.14.0-202310201027.p0.g0c63f9d.assembly.stream, +134 more Red Hat Openshift Data Foundation 4 odf4/rook-ceph-rhel9-operator
not affected: vulnerable code not present

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: partial
Assessed: 18 mo ago (2025-04-18)

Exploit prediction

0.89% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 59% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	3.1	5.3	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
GitHub	3.1	5.3	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
NVD	3.1	7.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
OSV	3.1	7.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem	package	affected	fixed in
go	helm.sh/helm/v3	<3.10.3	3.10.3
bitnami	helm	>=3.0.0, <3.10.3	3.10.3

Affected products

helm helm

Classification

Weakness

CWE-476 NULL Pointer Dereference

References

github.com /helm/helm/commit/638ebffbc2e445156f3978f02fd83d9af1e56f5b
web, patch, third-party-advisory, advisory
github.com /helm/helm/security/advisories/GHSA-53c4-hhmh-vw5q
web, third-party-advisory, advisory
nvd.nist.gov /vuln/detail/CVE-2022-23525
advisory, web
github.com /helm/helm
package
pkg.go.dev /vuln/GO-2022-1165
web

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.

Summary