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Fencer Vulns
high 8.5

CVE-2025-53547 json

Helm Chart Dependency Updating With Malicious Chart.yaml Content And Symlink Can Lead To Code Execution

published 2025-07-08 16 mo ago modified 2026-09-10 1 mo ago also BIT-helm-2025-53547 , EUVD-2025-20751 , GHSA-557j-xg8c-q2mm , GO-2025-3802

cvss
8.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 42%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Helm is a package manager for Charts for Kubernetes. Prior to 3.18.4, a specially crafted Chart.yaml file along with a specially linked Chart.lock file can lead to local code execution when dependencies are updated. Fields in a Chart.yaml file, that are carried over to a Chart.lock file when dependencies are updated and this file is written, can be crafted in a way that can cause execution if that same content were in a file that is executed (e.g., a bash.rc file or shell script). If the Chart.lock file is symlinked to one of these files updating dependencies will write the lock file content to the symlinked file. This can lead to unwanted execution. Helm warns of the symlinked file but did not stop execution due to symlinking. This issue has been resolved in Helm v3.18.4.

Patch / fix

  • go helm.sh/helm/v3 3.17.4, 3.18.4
  • bitnami helm 3.18.4
  • helm helm 3.18.4
  • helm SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES for SAP 15 SP3 +15 more 3.19.1-150000.1.57.1
  • helm Linux Micro 6.1 3.18.4-slfo.1.1_1.1
  • helm Linux Micro 6.0 3.18.4-1.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:4190-1SUSE-SU-2025:20595-1SUSE-SU-2025:20516-1

  • helm3 openSUSE Tumbleweed 3.19.2-1.1
  • govulncheck-vulndb openSUSE Tumbleweed 0.0.20250730T213748-1.1
  • kubeshark-cli openSUSE Tumbleweed 52.8.0-1.1
  • cmctl openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.3.0-1.1
  • k9s openSUSE Tumbleweed 0.50.7-2.1
  • trivy openSUSE Tumbleweed 0.64.1-1.1
  • helm openSUSE Tumbleweed 3.18.4-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2025:15779-1openSUSE-SU-2025:15405-1openSUSE-SU-2025:15406-1openSUSE-SU-2025:15336-1openSUSE-SU-2025:15338-1openSUSE-SU-2025:15341-1

  • helm Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 3.18.4-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2025-53547

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • helm CBL-Mariner 2.0 3.14.2-7

azure linux advisories AZL-64877

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

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-2025-53547 updated cvss 8.5

helm.sh/helm/v3: Helm Chart Code Execution

  • Red Hat Deployment Validation Operator dvo/deployment-validation-rhel8-operator, dvo/deployment-validation-operator-bundle Red Hat Migration Toolkit for Applications 7 mta/mta-cli-rhel9
    affected: workaround, no fix available
  • Red Hat Multicluster Engine for Kubernetes multicluster-engine/work-rhel8, multicluster-engine/work-rhel9, multicluster-engine/placement-rhel8, multicluster-engine/placement-rhel9, multicluster-engine/registration-rhel8, multicluster-engine/registration-rhel9, +13 more
    affected: workaround, no fix available, no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2 rhacm2/acm-search-v2-rhel9
    affected: workaround, no fix available
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift4/ose-console, openshift4/ose-olm-rukpak-rhel8, openshift4/ose-olm-rukpak-rhel9, openshift4/oc-mirror-plugin-rhel8, openshift4/ose-cluster-olm-operator-rhel8 Red Hat OpenShift GitOps openshift-gitops-1/dex-rhel8, openshift-gitops-1/gitops-rhel8, openshift-gitops-1/must-gather-rhel8, openshift-gitops-1/argo-rollouts-rhel8, openshift-gitops-1/console-plugin-rhel8, openshift-gitops-1/gitops-rhel8-operator, +1 more
    affected: workaround, no fix available, no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Trusted Application Pipeline rhtap-cli/rhtap-cli-rhel9
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat multicluster engine for Kubernetes 2.7 for RHEL 9 multicluster-engine/cluster-api-rhel9 v2.7.6-3
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2025:18278
  • Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.12 rhacm2
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2025:19961
  • Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.12 for RHEL 9 rhacm2/memcached-rhel9 v2.12.5-3
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2025:18744
show 19 more
  • Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.13 rhacm2/acm-multicluster-observability-addon-rhel9 1789126264
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:67540
  • Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.13 for RHEL 9 rhacm2/memcached-rhel9 v2.13.4-11, rhacm2/acm-flightctl-ui-rhel9 v2.13.4-10, rhacm2/acm-flightctl-api-rhel9 v2.13.4-11, rhacm2/acm-flightctl-ocp-ui-rhel9 v2.13.4-10, rhacm2/acm-flightctl-worker-rhel9 v2.13.4-11, rhacm2/acm-flightctl-periodic-rhel9 v2.13.4-11
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2025:16113
  • Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.14 rhacm2, rhacm2 1769720041, rhacm2 1769721579, rhacm2 1770336554
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2025:19335
  • Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.15 rhacm2/acm-multicluster-observability-addon-rhel9 1789126262
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:67541
  • Red Hat Migration Toolkit for Applications 8.2 mta/mta-cli-rhel9 1786484104
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:56347
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.12 openshift4 openshift-enterprise-operator-sdk-container-v4.12.0-202510081115.p2.g2900f90.assembly.stream.el8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2025:17672
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.13 openshift4 openshift-enterprise-operator-sdk-container-v4.13.0-202510140119.p2.g8da010a.assembly.stream.el8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2025:18242
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.14 openshift4, openshift4 openshift-enterprise-operator-sdk-container-v4.14.0-202509151013.p2.g520d9c8.assembly.stream.el8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2025:16166
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.15 openshift4 openshift-enterprise-operator-sdk-container-v4.15.0-202509151014.p2.g52fc4b9.assembly.stream.el8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2025:16161
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.16 openshift4, openshift4 openshift-enterprise-operator-sdk-container-v4.16.0-202509091828.p2.g0fa5db2.assembly.stream.el9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2025:15681
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.17 openshift4, openshift4 openshift-enterprise-operator-sdk-container-v4.17.0-202509020554.p2.g831a25b.assembly.stream.el9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2025:15345
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.18 openshift4, openshift4 openshift-enterprise-operator-sdk-container-v4.18.0-202508201347.p2.gf34bd90.assembly.stream.el9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2025:14821
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.19 openshift4
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2025:16535
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.20 openshift4 oc-mirror-plugin-container-v4.20.0-202509230043.p2.g767d31f.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4 ose-olm-catalogd-container-v4.20.0-202509270025.p2.g881b35e.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4 ose-cluster-olm-operator-container-v4.20.0-202509230726.p2.ge491736.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4 openshift-enterprise-console-container-v4.20.0-202509251856.p2.g8c75a91.assembly.stream.el9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2025:9562
  • Red Hat Multicluster Engine for Kubernetes multicluster-engine/backplane-rhel8-operator, multicluster-engine/backplane-rhel9-operator
    not affected: vulnerable code not present
  • Red Hat Multicluster Global Hub multicluster-globalhub/multicluster-globalhub-agent-rhel9, multicluster-globalhub/multicluster-globalhub-manager-rhel9, multicluster-globalhub/multicluster-globalhub-rhel9-operator, multicluster-globalhub/multicluster-globalhub-operator-bundle
    not affected: vulnerable code not in execute path
  • Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh 2 openshift-service-mesh/pilot-rhel8, openshift-service-mesh/proxyv2-rhel8, openshift-service-mesh/proxyv2-rhel9, openshift-service-mesh/istio-cni-rhel8 Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh 3 openshift-service-mesh/istio-cni-rhel9, openshift-service-mesh/istio-pilot-rhel9, openshift-service-mesh/istio-proxyv2-rhel9, openshift-service-mesh/istio-rhel9-operator, openshift-service-mesh/istio-must-gather-rhel9, openshift-service-mesh/istio-sail-operator-bundle, +1 more Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2 rhacm2/multiclusterhub-rhel9 Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.12 rhacm2 Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.13 rhacm2/thanos-rhel9 1789136147, rhacm2/acm-cli-rhel9 1788560311, rhacm2/console-rhel9 1788972841, rhacm2/prometheus-rhel9 1788952534, rhacm2/acm-grafana-rhel9 1788954486, rhacm2/acm-search-v2-rhel9 1788987824, +37 more Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.14 rhacm2, rhacm2 1769990632, rhacm2 1769990643, rhacm2 1770039851, rhacm2 1770049220, rhacm2 1770049695, +35 more
    +5 more products
    Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.15 rhacm2/thanos-rhel9 1788942355, rhacm2/acm-cli-rhel9 1788894643, rhacm2/console-rhel9 1788564023, rhacm2/prometheus-rhel9 1788943695, rhacm2/acm-grafana-rhel9 1788955233, rhacm2/acm-search-v2-rhel9 1788985829, +39 more Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security 4 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, advanced-cluster-security/rhacs-scanner-v4-rhel8, advanced-cluster-security/rhacs-scanner-v4-db-rhel8 Red Hat Build of Kueue kueue/kueue-rhel9 Red Hat Migration Toolkit for Applications 8.2 mta/mta-ui-rhel9 1786481558, mta/mta-hub-rhel9 1786482352, mta/mta-rhel9-operator 1786481481, mta/mta-operator-bundle 1786485425, mta/mta-analyzer-addon-rhel9 1786482470, mta/mta-platform-addon-rhel9 1786481489, +7 more Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) rhoai/odh-mm-rest-proxy-rhel9, rhoai/odh-model-registry-rhel9, rhoai/odh-kueue-controller-rhel8, rhoai/odh-kueue-controller-rhel9, rhoai/odh-mlmd-grpc-server-rhel9, rhoai/odh-training-operator-rhel9, +9 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift4/ose-helm-operator, openshift4/ose-ansible-operator, openshift4/metallb-rhel8-operator, openshift4/metallb-rhel9-operator, openshift4/ose-olm-catalogd-rhel8, openshift4/ose-helm-rhel9-operator, +2 more
    not affected: component not present
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.12 openshift4 v4.12.0-202509270106.p2.g092b025.assembly.stream.el8, openshift4 v4.12.0-202509270106.p2.g2900f90.assembly.stream.el8, openshift4 v4.12.0-202509270106.p2.g7e8a010.assembly.stream.el8, openshift4 v4.12.0-202509270106.p2.gd054948.assembly.stream.el8, openshift4 v4.12.0-202509270106.p2.gda2786b.assembly.stream.el8, openshift4 v4.12.0-202510081115.p2.g007c2b1.assembly.stream.el8, +31 more Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.13 openshift4 v4.13.0-202510131530.p2.g01bbb23.assembly.stream.el8, openshift4 v4.13.0-202510131530.p2.g1a14e5c.assembly.stream.el8, openshift4 v4.13.0-202510131530.p2.g8c0b7dc.assembly.stream.el8, openshift4 v4.13.0-202510131530.p2.g8da010a.assembly.stream.el8, openshift4 v4.13.0-202510131530.p2.gfea81b8.assembly.stream.el8, openshift4 v4.13.0-202510140119.p2.g8f1cfbf.assembly.stream.el8, +30 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

7 more not affected in the full advisory

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
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
12 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.49% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 42% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 8.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:H
GitHub 3.1 8.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 8.6 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
OSV 3.1 8.6 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
go helm.sh/helm/v3
>=3.18.0-rc.1, <3.18.4
<3.17.4
<3.18.4
3.18.4
3.17.4
bitnami helm
<3.18.4
3.18.4

Affected products

  • helm helm

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-94 Improper Control of Generation of Code

References

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.

CPEs and fixed versions use Anchore's correction of NVD's data: Added CPE configurations because not yet analyzed by NVD.