CVE-2022-24877 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.9) Path Traversal vulnerability in github.com/fluxcd/kustomize-controller. A fix is available for github.com/fluxcd/kustomize-controller — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Improper path handling in kustomization files allows path traversal
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- 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-2022-24877.
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
github.com/fluxcd/kustomize-controller🐹github.com/fluxcd/flux2Real-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 kustomize-controller enables the use of Kustomize’s functionality when applying Kubernetes declarative state onto a cluster. A malicious user can use built-in features and a specially crafted kustomization.yaml to expose sensitive data from the controller’s pod filesystem. In multi-tenancy deployments this can lead to privilege escalation if the controller's service account has elevated permissions.
Within the affected versions, users with write access to a Flux source are able to use built-in features to expose sensitive data from the controller’s pod filesystem using a malicious kustomization.yaml file.
This vulnerability was fixed in kustomize-controller v0.24.0 and included in flux2 v0.29.0 released on 2022-04-20. The changes introduce a new Kustomize file system implementation which ensures that all files being handled are contained within the Kustomization working directory, blocking references to any files that do not meet that requirement.
Automated tooling (e.g. conftest) could be employed as a workaround, as part of a user's CI/CD pipeline to ensure that their kustomization.yaml files conform with specific policies, blocking access to sensitive path locations.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/fluxcd/kustomize-controller | all versions | 0.24.0go get github.com/fluxcd/kustomize-controller@v0.24.0 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/fluxcd/flux2 | all versions | 0.29.0go get github.com/fluxcd/flux2@v0.29.0 |
Affected Products
flux2fluxcdkustomize-controllerfluxcdDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/fluxcd/kustomize-controller, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/fluxcd/kustomize-controller to 0.24.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-24877 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Resolve every user-supplied path to its canonical form and reject anything that escapes the intended directory, and run the component under an account that has no read or write access outside the directory it legitimately serves.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-24877 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.