CVE-2023-34091 MEDIUM

CVE-2023-34091: Kyverno resource with a deletionTimestamp may allow policy circumvention

Vendor Kyverno
Product kyverno
Weakness CWE-285
Published June 1, 2023
Last update January 8, 2025

CVSS base score

6.5/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required Low
User interaction None
Confidentiality None
Integrity High

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

What the vulnerability does

01Description

Kyverno is a policy engine designed for Kubernetes. In versions of Kyverno prior to 1.10.0, resources which have the `deletionTimestamp` field defined can bypass validate, generate, or mutate-existing policies, even in cases where the `validationFailureAction` field is set to `Enforce`. This situation occurs as resources pending deletion were being consciously exempted by Kyverno, as a way to reduce processing load as policies are typically not applied to objects which are being deleted. However, this could potentially result in allowing a malicious user to leverage the Kubernetes finalizers feature by setting a finalizer which causes the Kubernetes API server to set the `deletionTimestamp` and then not completing the delete operation as a way to explicitly to bypass a Kyverno policy. Note that this is not applicable to Kubernetes Pods but, as an example, a Kubernetes Service resource can be manipulated using an indefinite finalizer to bypass policies. This is resolved in Kyverno 1.10.0. There is no known workaround.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

June 1, 2023 CVE published
January 8, 2025 Record updated