Kyverno resource with a deletionTimestamp may allow policy circumventionGHSA-hq4m-4948-64cc
MEDIUMGHSA-hq4m-4948-64cc is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) CWE-285 vulnerability in github.com/kyverno/kyverno. A fix is available for github.com/kyverno/kyverno — see the affected versions and patch details below.
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 GHSA-hq4m-4948-64cc.
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/kyverno/kyvernoReal-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
Impact
In versions of Kyverno prior to 1.10.0, resources which have the deletionTimestamp field defined can bypass validate, generate, or mutate-existing policies, even in cases where the validationFailureAction field is set to Enforce.
This situation occurs as resources pending deletion were being consciously exempted by Kyverno, as a way to reduce processing load as policies are typically not applied to objects which are being deleted.
However, this could potentially result in allowing a malicious user to leverage the Kubernetes finalizers feature by setting a finalizer which causes the Kubernetes API server to set the deletionTimestamp and then not completing the delete operation as a way to explicitly to bypass a Kyverno policy.
Note that this is not applicable to Kubernetes Pods but, as an example, a Kubernetes Service resource can be manipulated using an indefinite finalizer to bypass policies.
Patches
This is resolved in Kyverno 1.10.0.
Workarounds
There is no known workaround.
References
Are there any links users can visit to find out more?
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/kyverno/kyverno | all versions | 1.10.0go get github.com/kyverno/kyverno@v1.10.0 |
Affected Products
kyvernonirmataDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/kyverno/kyverno, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/kyverno/kyverno to 1.10.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-hq4m-4948-64cc 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-hq4m-4948-64cc in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.