CVE-2019-11254 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) CWE-1050 vulnerability in gopkg.in/yaml.v2. A fix is available for gopkg.in/yaml.v2 — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Excessive Platform Resource Consumption within a Loop in Kubernetes
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
gopkg.in/yaml.v2🐹github.com/go-yaml/yamlReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
The Kubernetes API Server component in versions 1.1-1.14, and versions prior to 1.15.10, 1.16.7 and 1.17.3 allows an authorized user who sends malicious YAML payloads to cause the kube-apiserver to consume excessive CPU cycles while parsing YAML.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | gopkg.in/yaml.v2 | all versions | 2.2.8go get gopkg.in/yaml.v2@v2.2.8 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/go-yaml/yaml | all versions | No fix |
Affected Products
kuberneteskubernetesDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for gopkg.in/yaml.v2, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update gopkg.in/yaml.v2 to 2.2.8 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2019-11254 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
The upstream Kubernetes fix for this vulnerability is to update the version of the Go dependency, gopkg.in/yaml.v2. This issue affects OpenShift Container Platform components that use versions before 2.2.8 of gopkg.in/yaml.v2 and accept YAML payloads.
Prevent unauthenticated or unauthorized access to the API serverSource: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2019-11254 (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 3.11 | atomic-openshift-0:3.11.232-1.git.0.a5bc32f.el7 | RHSA-2020:2479 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.3 | openshift4/ose-openshift-apiserver-rhel7:v4.3.9-202003230345 | RHSA-2020:0933 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.5 | openshift4/ose-hyperkube:v4.5.0-202007100518.p0 | RHSA-2020:2412 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.5 | openshift-0:4.5.0-202007012112.p0.git.0.582d7fc.el7 | RHSA-2020:2413 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2019-11254 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.