CVE-2025-53547
Description
A command injection vulnerability has been identified in Helm, a package manager for Kubernetes. An attacker can craft a malicious Chart.yaml file with specially linked dependencies in a Chart.lock file. If the Chart.lock file is a symbolic link to an executable file, such as a shell script, and a user attempts to update the dependencies, the crafted content is written to the symlinked file and executed. This can lead to local code execution on the system. This issue has been patched in Helm version 3.18.4, and users should update to this version to mitigate the risk.
Statement
Although GitOps ships Helm, this product is not vulnerable to this vulnerability as ArgoCD doesn't use helm dependency update. Additionally ArgoCD scans the whole repository searching for symbolic links that eventually points to a out of bounds destination, this later feature ensures ArgoCD is not vulnerable for this issue. Given this information ArgoCD won't be updated to pull a new version of Helm in other versions than the currently latest upstream one.
Mitigation
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 8.5 | 8.6 | 8.5 |
| Attack Vector | Local | Local | Local |
| Attack Complexity | Low | Low | Low |
| Privileges Required | None | None | None |
| User Interaction | Required | Required | Required |
| Scope | Changed | Changed | Changed |
| Confidentiality | Low | High | Low |
| Integrity Impact | High | High | High |
| Availability Impact | High | High | High |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:H
NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Access Control
Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism
In some cases, injectable code controls authentication; this may lead to a remote vulnerability.
Access Control
Technical Impact: Gain Privileges or Assume Identity
Injected code can access resources that the attacker is directly prevented from accessing.
Integrity,Confidentiality,Availability
Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands
When a product allows a user's input to contain code syntax, it might be possible for an attacker to craft the code in such a way that it will alter the intended control flow of the product. As a result, code injection can often result in the execution of arbitrary code. Code injection attacks can also lead to loss of data integrity in nearly all cases, since the control-plane data injected is always incidental to data recall or writing.
Non-Repudiation
Technical Impact: Hide Activities
Often the actions performed by injected control code are unlogged.
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