How severe is CVE-2022-23526?

CVE-2022-23526 has a CVSS score of 5.3/10, rated MEDIUM. Review your exposure and patch according to your risk tolerance.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2022-23526?

CVE-2022-23526 affects the following packages: helm.sh/helm/v3 (Go). Ecosystems affected: Go.

How do I fix CVE-2022-23526?

Update helm.sh/helm/v3 to 3.10.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-23526 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2022-23526 in my Go dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for helm.sh/helm/v3, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

How do I mitigate CVE-2022-23526 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.

Is CVE-2022-23526 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for CVE-2022-23526 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2022-23526?

CVE-2022-23526 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 0.9%, placing it in the 59th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

What type of vulnerability is CVE-2022-23526?

CVE-2022-23526 is classified as NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476). This weakness type describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation.

When was CVE-2022-23526 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2022-23526 was published on December 15, 2022 and was last updated on October 28, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

🐹

🐹 Go

Not in CISA KEV

MEDIUM severity

CVE-2022-23526 — helm

MEDIUMFix: helm/helm@bafafa8

CVE-2022-23526 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerability in helm.sh/helm/v3. A fix is available for helm.sh/helm/v3 — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Helm contains Denial of service through schema file

Also known asBIT-helm-2022-23526GHSA-67fx-wx78-jx33GO-2022-1166

Published

Dec 15, 2022

Updated

Oct 28, 2026

Affected

1 pkg

Patched

1 / 1

Exploits

None indexed

Exploitation data as of Nov 5, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Exploitation Status

No confirmed exploitation observed yet

CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.

Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2022-23526.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

0.9%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk0.00%

Lower risk than most CVEs59th percentile — riskier than 59% of all scored CVEsHighest risk

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

1 pkg affected

🐹helm.sh/helm/v3

Real-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

Fuzz testing, by Ada Logics and sponsored by the CNCF, identified input to functions in the _chartutil_ package that can cause a segmentation violation. Applications that use functions from the _chartutil_ package in the Helm SDK can have a Denial of Service attack when they use this package and it panics.

Impact

The _chartutil_ package contains a parser that loads a JSON Schema validation file. For example, the Helm client when rendering a chart will validate its values with the schema file. The _chartutil_ package parses the schema file and loads it into structures Go can work with. Some schema files can cause array data structures to be created causing a memory violation.

Applications that use the _chartutil_ package in the Helm SDK to parse a schema file can suffer a Denial of Service when that input causes a panic that cannot be recovered from.

The Helm Client will panic with a schema file that causes a memory violation panic. Helm is not a long running service so the panic will not affect future uses of the Helm client.

Patches

This issue has been resolved in 3.10.3.

Workarounds

SDK users can validate schema files that are correctly formatted before passing them to the _chartutil_ functions.

For more information

Helm's security policy is spelled out in detail in our SECURITY document.

Credits

Disclosed by Ada Logics in a fuzzing audit sponsored by CNCF.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
🐹Go	`helm.sh/helm/v3`	all versions	3.10.3`go get helm.sh/helm/v3@v3.10.3`

Affected Products

1 product · 1 configurations

Application

helmhelm

≥ 3.0.0 && < 3.10.3

range

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for helm.sh/helm/v3, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update helm.sh/helm/v3 to 3.10.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-23526 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.

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.

Red HatModerate

This moderate severity flaw was found in the Helm SDK’s chartutil package, which occurs when parsing a specially crafted JSON Schema file, the parser can mishandle the input, triggering a segmentation violation (NULL Pointer Dereference) that causes the Helm client to panic. This results in a denial of service (DoS)…

Product	Fixed in	Advisory
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.12	`openshift4/metallb-rhel8-operator:v4.12.0-202303301557.p0.g270d2eb.assembly.stream`	RHSA-2023:1646
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.13	`openshift4/oc-mirror-plugin-rhel8:v4.13.0-202305091542.p0.gbee629a.assembly.stream`	RHSA-2023:1326
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.14	`openshift4/oc-mirror-plugin-rhel8:v4.14.0-202310201027.p0.g68cf97e.assembly.stream`	RHSA-2023:5006

Frequently Asked Questions

Fuzz testing, by Ada Logics and sponsored by the CNCF, identified input to functions in the `_chartutil_` package that can cause a segmentation violation. Applications that use functions from the `_chartutil_` package in the Helm SDK can have a Denial of Service attack when they use this package and it panics. ### Impact The `_chartutil_` package contains a parser that loads a JSON Schema validation file. For example, the Helm client when rendering a chart will validate its values with the schema file. The `_chartutil_` package parses the schema file and loads it into structures Go can work