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Fencer Vulns
medium 6.5

CVE-2025-55199 json

Helm Charts with Specific JSON Schema Values Can Cause Memory Exhaustion

published 2025-08-13 14 mo ago modified 2026-09-10 1 mo ago also BIT-helm-2025-55199 , EUVD-2025-24647 , GHSA-9h84-qmv7-982p , GO-2025-3887

cvss
6.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 29%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Helm is a package manager for Charts for Kubernetes. Prior to version 3.18.5, it is possible to craft a JSON Schema file in a manner which could cause Helm to use all available memory and have an out of memory (OOM) termination. This issue has been resolved in Helm 3.18.5. A workaround involves ensuring all Helm charts that are being loaded into Helm do not have any reference of $ref pointing to /dev/zero.

Patch / fix

  • go helm.sh/helm/v3 3.18.5
  • bitnami helm 3.18.5
  • helm helm 3.18.5
  • helm SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 3.20.2-160000.1.1
  • helm SLE Module for Package Hub 15 SP7, SLE Module for Containers 15 SP7, SLE Micro 5.5 3.20.2-150000.1.71.2

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:21434-1SUSE-SU-2026:21461-1SUSE-SU-2026:1483-1

  • govulncheck-vulndb openSUSE Leap 16.0 0.0.20260723T184607-160000.1.1
  • helm openSUSE Tumbleweed 4.1.1-3.1
  • helm3 openSUSE Tumbleweed 3.20.0-2.1
  • govulncheck-vulndb openSUSE Tumbleweed 0.0.20250818T190335-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:21483-1openSUSE-SU-2026:10318-1openSUSE-SU-2026:10319-1openSUSE-SU-2025:15469-1

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-2025-55199 updated cvss 6.5

helm.sh/helm/v3: Helm Chart JSON Schema Denial of Service

  • Red Hat Deployment Validation Operator dvo/deployment-validation-rhel8-operator Red Hat Migration Toolkit for Applications 7 mta/mta-cli-rhel9 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, +16 more
    affected: workaround, no fix available “To mitigate this flaw, ensure all Helm charts do not have any reference of $ref pointing to /dev/zero.”
  • 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
    affected: workaround, no fix available, no fix planned “To mitigate this flaw, ensure all Helm charts do not have any reference of $ref pointing to /dev/zero.”
  • 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
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “To mitigate this flaw, ensure all Helm charts do not have any reference of $ref pointing to /dev/zero.”
  • 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/acm-search-v2-rhel9, rhacm2/multiclusterhub-rhel9, rhacm2/multicloud-integrations-rhel9, rhacm2/acm-volsync-addon-controller-rhel9, rhacm2/multicluster-operators-channel-rhel9, rhacm2/multicluster-operators-subscription-rhel9, +2 more
    affected: workaround, no fix available “To mitigate this flaw, ensure all Helm charts do not have any reference of $ref pointing to /dev/zero.”
  • 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
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “To mitigate this flaw, ensure all Helm charts do not have any reference of $ref pointing to /dev/zero.”
  • Red Hat Build of Kueue kueue/kueue-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) rhoai/odh-kueue-controller-rhel8, rhoai/odh-kueue-controller-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift4/ose-console, openshift4/cnf-tests-rhel9, openshift4/ose-helm-operator, openshift4/ose-ansible-operator, openshift4/ose-olm-rukpak-rhel8, openshift4/ose-olm-rukpak-rhel9, +14 more Red Hat Openshift Data Foundation 4 odf4/odf-csi-addons-sidecar-rhel9, odf4/odf-csi-addons-rhel9-operator
    affected: workaround, no fix available “To mitigate this flaw, ensure all Helm charts do not have any reference of $ref pointing to /dev/zero.”
  • Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces devspaces/udi-rhel9, devspaces/traefik-rhel9, devspaces/dashboard-rhel9, devspaces/configbump-rhel9, devspaces/imagepuller-rhel9, devspaces/devspaces-rhel9-operator, +2 more Red Hat OpenShift GitOps openshift-gitops-1/dex-rhel8, openshift-gitops-1/argocd-rhel8, openshift-gitops-1/argocd-rhel9, openshift-gitops-1/gitops-rhel8, openshift-gitops-1/must-gather-rhel8, openshift-gitops-1/argocd-agent-rhel8, +4 more Red Hat Trusted Application Pipeline rhtap-cli/rhtap-cli-rhel9
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “To mitigate this flaw, ensure all Helm charts do not have any reference of $ref pointing to /dev/zero.”
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.20 openshift4 openshift-enterprise-console-container-v4.20.0-202511250912.p2.ga7d3608.assembly.stream.el9
    fixed: vendor fix “To mitigate this flaw, ensure all Helm charts do not have any reference of $ref pointing to /dev/zero.” RHSA-2025:22257
show 2 more
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.21 openshift4 1770188884
    fixed: vendor fix “To mitigate this flaw, ensure all Helm charts do not have any reference of $ref pointing to /dev/zero.” RHSA-2026:2129
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.20 openshift4 v4.20.0-202511250912.p2.g019abe0.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4 v4.20.0-202511250912.p2.g0bbafe2.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4 v4.20.0-202511250912.p2.g184a960.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4 v4.20.0-202511250912.p2.g21f405c.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4 v4.20.0-202511250912.p2.g234e218.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4 v4.20.0-202511250912.p2.g276696c.assembly.stream.el9, +183 more Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.21 openshift4 1769725137, openshift4 1769725144, openshift4 1769725145, openshift4 1769725150, openshift4 1769725153, openshift4 1769725155, +177 more
    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
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
14 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.35% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 29% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
GitHub 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
OSV 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
go helm.sh/helm/v3
<3.18.5
3.18.5
bitnami helm
<3.18.5
3.18.5
go helm.sh/helm
all versions
 no fix listed

Affected products

  • helm helm

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-770 Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

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.