kyverno JMESPath up to 1.14.1 non_existent_function denial of service

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability described as problematic has been identified in kyverno JMESPath up to 1.14.1. Impacted is the function non_existent_function of the component JMESPath Handler. Executing a manipulation can lead to denial of service. This vulnerability is handled as CVE-2025-47281. The attack can be executed remotely. There is not any exploit available. Upgrading the affected component is recommended.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical was found in kyverno JMESPath up to 1.14.1. This vulnerability affects the function non_existent_function of the component JMESPath Handler. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a denial of service vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-404. The product does not release or incorrectly releases a resource before it is made available for re-use. As an impact it is known to affect availability. CVE summarizes:

Kyverno is a policy engine designed for cloud native platform engineering teams. In versions 1.14.1 and below, a Denial of Service (DoS) vulnerability exists due to improper handling of JMESPath variable substitutions. Attackers with permissions to create or update Kyverno policies can craft expressions using the {{@}} variable combined with a pipe and an invalid JMESPath function (e.g., {{@ | non_existent_function }}). This leads to a nil value being substituted into the policy structure. Subsequent processing by internal functions, specifically getValueAsStringMap, which expect string values, results in a panic due to a type assertion failure (interface {} is nil, not string). This crashes Kyverno worker threads in the admission controller and causes continuous crashes of the reports controller pod. This is fixed in version 1.14.2.

The advisory is shared for download at github.com. This vulnerability was named CVE-2025-47281 since 05/05/2025. The exploitation appears to be easy. The attack can be initiated remotely. There are known technical details, but no exploit is available. The MITRE ATT&CK project declares the attack technique as T1499.

Upgrading to version 1.14.2 eliminates this vulnerability.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at EUVD (EUVD-2025-22470). Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Vendor

• kyverno

Name

• JMESPath

Version

• 1.14.0
• 1.14.1

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Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

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