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Fencer Vulns
high 8.8

CVE-2023-3955 json

Kubernetes - Windows nodes - Insufficient input sanitization leads to privilege escalation

published 2023-10-31 3 y ago modified 2026-09-10 1 mo ago also GHSA-q78c-gwqw-jcmc , GO-2023-2170 , EUVD-2023-2793

cvss
8.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
3.8%
EPSS 3.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 90%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

A security issue was discovered in Kubernetes where a user that can create pods on Windows nodes may be able to escalate to admin privileges on those nodes. Kubernetes clusters are only affected if they include Windows nodes.

Patch / fix

  • go k8s.io/kubernetes 1.24.17, 1.25.13, 1.26.8, 1.27.5, 1.28.1
  • go k8s.io/mount-utils 0.24.17, 0.25.13, 0.26.8, 0.27.5, 0.28.1
  • Kubernetes kubelet 1.24.17, 1.25.13, 1.26.8, 1.27.5, 1.28.1, v1.24.17, v1.25.13, v1.26.8, v1.27.5, v1.28.1
  • kubernetes Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 1.20.5+really1.20.2-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-3955

  • govulncheck-vulndb openSUSE Tumbleweed 0.0.20241213T205935-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:14599-1

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-2023-3955 updated cvss 8.8

kubernetes: Insufficient input sanitization on Windows nodes leads to privilege escalation

  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.10 openshift4-wincw/windows-machine-config-rhel8-operator 5.1.2-3
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:4835
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.11 openshift4-wincw/windows-machine-config-rhel8-operator 6.0.2-5
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:4780
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.12 openshift4-wincw/windows-machine-config-rhel8-operator 7.1.1-9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:4777
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.13 openshift4-wincw/windows-machine-config-rhel9-operator 8.0.2-9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:4885
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.14 openshift4/windows-machine-config-operator-bundle v9.0.0-104, openshift4-wincw/windows-machine-config-rhel9-operator 9.0.0-105, openshift4-wincw/windows-machine-config-operator-bundle v9.0.0-104
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:7515
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.10 openshift4-wincw/windows-machine-config-operator-bundle v5.1.2-2 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.11 openshift4-wincw/windows-machine-config-operator-bundle v6.0.2-5 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.12 openshift4-wincw/windows-machine-config-operator-bundle v7.1.1-8 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.13 openshift4-wincw/windows-machine-config-operator-bundle v8.0.2-9
    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
total
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

3.78% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 90% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/119595 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 8.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 8.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
GitHub 3.1 8.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
go k8s.io/kubernetes
>=1.28.0, <1.28.1
>=1.27.0, <1.27.5
>=1.26.0, <1.26.8
>=1.25.0, <1.25.13
<1.24.17
1.28.1
1.27.5
1.26.8
1.25.13
1.24.17
go k8s.io/mount-utils
<0.24.17
>=0.25.0, <0.25.13
>=0.26.0, <0.26.8
>=0.27.0, <0.27.5
>=0.28.0, <0.28.1
0.24.17
0.25.13
0.26.8
0.27.5
0.28.1

Affected products

  • Kubernetes kubelet

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-20 Improper Input Validation
Technology feeds

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.