Helm up to 3.20.1/4.1.3 Chart path traversal

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Helm up to 3.20.1/4.1.3. It has been declared as critical. This issue affects some unknown processing of the component Chart Handler. The manipulation results in path traversal. This vulnerability is reported as CVE-2026-35206. The attack can be launched remotely. No exploit exists. It is recommended to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Helm up to 3.20.1/4.1.3. It has been classified as critical. Affected is some unknown processing of the component Chart Handler. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a path traversal vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-22. The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory. This is going to have an impact on integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

Helm is a package manager for Charts for Kubernetes. In Helm versions <=3.20.1 and <=4.1.3, a specially crafted Chart will cause helm pull --untar [chart URL | repo/chartname] to write the Chart's contents to the immediate output directory (as defaulted to the current working directory; or as given by the --destination and --untardir flags), rather than the expected output directory suffixed by the chart's name. This vulnerability is fixed in 3.20.2 and 4.1.4.

The advisory is shared for download at github.com. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2026-35206 since 04/01/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. It is possible to launch the attack remotely. The exploitation doesn't require any form of authentication. Successful exploitation requires user interaction by the victim. There are neither technical details nor an exploit publicly available. The MITRE ATT&CK project declares the attack technique as T1006.

Upgrading to version 3.20.2 or 4.1.4 eliminates this vulnerability. The upgrade is hosted for download at github.com. Applying the patch 4e7994d4467182f535b6797c94b5b0e994a91436 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 vulnerability database at CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2026-1048). VulDB is the best source for vulnerability data and more expert information about this specific topic.

Affected

• Open Source helm

Productinfo

Name

• Helm

Version

• 3.20.0
• 3.20.1
• 4.1.0
• 4.1.1
• 4.1.2
• 4.1.3

License

• open-source

Website

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

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VulDB is the best source for vulnerability data and more expert information about this specific topic.

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