GHSA-74fp-r6jw-h4mp
HIGHGHSA-74fp-r6jw-h4mp is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) vulnerability in k8s.io/apimachinery. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-74fp-r6jw-h4mp is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Kubernetes apimachinery packages vulnerable to unbounded recursion in JSON or YAML parsing
Blast Radius
k8s.io/apimachineryReal-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
CVE-2019-11253 is a denial of service vulnerability in the kube-apiserver, allowing authorized users sending malicious YAML or JSON payloads to cause kube-apiserver to consume excessive CPU or memory, potentially crashing and becoming unavailable.
When creating a ConfigMap object which has recursive references contained in it, excessive CPU usage can occur. This appears to be an instance of a "Billion Laughs" attack which is quite well known as an XML parsing issue.
Applying this manifest to a cluster causes the client to hang for some time with considerable CPU usage.
apiVersion: v1
data:
a: &a ["web","web","web","web","web","web","web","web","web"]
b: &b [*a,*a,*a,*a,*a,*a,*a,*a,*a]
c: &c [*b,*b,*b,*b,*b,*b,*b,*b,*b]
d: &d [*c,*c,*c,*c,*c,*c,*c,*c,*c]
e: &e [*d,*d,*d,*d,*d,*d,*d,*d,*d]
f: &f [*e,*e,*e,*e,*e,*e,*e,*e,*e]
g: &g [*f,*f,*f,*f,*f,*f,*f,*f,*f]
h: &h [*g,*g,*g,*g,*g,*g,*g,*g,*g]
i: &i [*h,*h,*h,*h,*h,*h,*h,*h,*h]
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: yaml-bomb
namespace: default
Specific Go Packages Affected
- k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/runtime/serializer/json
- k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/json
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | k8s.io/apimachinery | all versions | 0.0.0-20190927203648-9ce6eca90e73 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for k8s.io/apimachinery. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update k8s.io/apimachinery to 0.0.0-20190927203648-9ce6eca90e73 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-74fp-r6jw-h4mp 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.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether GHSA-74fp-r6jw-h4mp is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to GHSA-74fp-r6jw-h4mp. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-74fp-r6jw-h4mp in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-74fp-r6jw-h4mp across Go dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.