CVE-2025-55199 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) CWE-770 vulnerability in helm.sh/helm/v3. A fix is available for helm.sh/helm/v3 — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Helm Charts with Specific JSON Schema Values Can Cause Memory Exhaustion
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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-2025-55199.
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
helm.sh/helm/v3Real-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
A Helm contributor discovered that it was possible to craft a JSON Schema file in a manner which could cause Helm to use all available memory and have an out of memory (OOM) termination.
Impact
A malicious chart can point $ref in values.schema.json to a device (e.g. /dev/*) or other problem file which could cause Helm to use all available memory and have an out of memory (OOM) termination.
Patches
This issue has been resolved in Helm v3.18.5.
Workarounds
Make sure that all Helm charts that are being loaded into Helm doesn't have any reference of $ref pointing to /dev/zero.
References
Helm's security policy is spelled out in detail in our SECURITY document.
Credits
Disclosed by Jakub Ciolek at AlphaSense.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | helm.sh/helm/v3 | all versions | 3.18.5go get helm.sh/helm/v3@v3.18.5 |
Affected Products
helmhelmDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
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 3.18.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2025-55199 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.
To mitigate this flaw, ensure all Helm charts do not have any reference of $ref pointing to /dev/zero.Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2025-55199 (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.20 | openshift4/ose-console-rhel9:openshift-enterprise-console-container-v4.20.0-202511250912.p2.ga7d3608.assembly.stream.el9 | RHSA-2025:22257 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.21 | openshift4/ose-console-rhel9:1770188884 | RHSA-2026:2129 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2025-55199 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.