Helm up to 3.18.3 code injection

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in Helm up to 3.18.3. This impacts an unknown function. This manipulation causes code injection. This vulnerability appears as CVE-2025-53547. The attack may be initiated remotely. There is no available exploit. It is recommended to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability has been found in Helm up to 3.18.3 and classified as critical. Affected by this vulnerability is some unknown processing. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a code injection vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-94. The product constructs all or part of a code segment using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the syntax or behavior of the intended code segment. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

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.

It is possible to read the advisory at github.com. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2025-53547 since 07/02/2025. The exploitation appears to be easy. The attack can be launched remotely. The exploitation doesn't need any form of authentication. It demands that the victim is doing some kind of user interaction. The technical details are unknown and an exploit is not publicly available. The attack technique deployed by this issue is T1059 according to MITRE ATT&CK.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 242232 (CBL Mariner 2.0 Security Update: helm (CVE-2025-53547)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 3.18.4 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 4b8e61093d8f579f1165cdc6bd4b43fa5455f571 is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at github.com. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (242232), EUVD (EUVD-2025-20751) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-2424). Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

Affected

• IBM Rational Team Concert

Productinfo

Name

• Helm

Version

• 3.18.0
• 3.18.1
• 3.18.2
• 3.18.3

License

• open-source

Website

• Product: https://github.com/helm/helm/

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