GHSA-r53h-jv2g-vpx6 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-457 vulnerability in helm.sh/helm/v3. A fix is available for helm.sh/helm/v3 — see the affected versions and patch details below.
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 GHSA-r53h-jv2g-vpx6.
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 uninitialized variable vulnerability when Helm parses index and plugin yaml files missing expected content.
Impact
When either an index.yaml file or a plugins plugin.yaml file were missing all metadata a panic would occur in Helm.
In the Helm SDK this is found when using the LoadIndexFile or DownloadIndexFile functions in the repo package or the LoadDir function in the plugin package. For the Helm client this impacts functions around adding a repository and all Helm functions if a malicious plugin is added as Helm inspects all known plugins on each invocation.
Patches
This issue has been resolved in Helm v3.14.2.
Workarounds
If a malicious plugin has been added which is causing all Helm client commands to panic, the malicious plugin can be manually removed from the filesystem.
If using Helm SDK versions prior to 3.14.2, calls to affected functions can use recover to catch the panic.
For more information
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 | 3.14.2go get helm.sh/helm/v3@v3.14.2 |
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 3.14.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-r53h-jv2g-vpx6 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.
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 Hat rates this as Moderate since this would impact the Helm client and requires a malicious plugin to be in place, which can be removed.
If a malicious plugin has been added which is causing all Helm client commands to panic, the malicious plugin can be manually removed from the filesystem. If using Helm SDK versions prior to 3.14.2, calls to affected functions can use recover to catch the panic.Source: Red Hat security advisory for GHSA-r53h-jv2g-vpx6 (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.9 for RHEL 8 | rhacm2/acm-governance-policy-addon-controller-rhel8:v2.9.3-9 | RHSA-2024:1328 |
| Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security 4.3 | advanced-cluster-security/rhacs-central-db-rhel8:4.3.6-2 | RHSA-2024:1549 |
| Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security 4.4 | advanced-cluster-security/rhacs-main-rhel8:4.4.0-17 | RHSA-2024:1570 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.14 | openshift4/ose-console:v4.14.0-202504220036.p0.gee29720.assembly.stream.el8 | RHSA-2025:4177 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.15 | openshift4/ose-console:v4.15.0-202408281825.p0.gbbdbb94.assembly.stream.el8 | RHSA-2024:6013 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.15 | openshift4/ose-azure-cluster-api-controllers-rhel9:v4.15.0-202405130639.p0.g0584f1f.assembly.stream.el9 | RHSA-2024:2865 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.16 | openshift4/ose-console-rhel9:v4.16.0-202406260236.p0.ga7502a0.assembly.stream.el9 | RHSA-2024:4156 |
| Red Hat OpenShift GitOps 1.11 | openshift-gitops-1/argocd-rhel8:v1.11.6-2 | RHSA-2024:4626 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-r53h-jv2g-vpx6 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.