Gardener External DNS Management allows malicious google credential in DNS secret to lead to privilege escalationGHSA-xwgg-m7fx-83wx
CRITICALGHSA-xwgg-m7fx-83wx is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.9) Improper Input Validation vulnerability in github.com/gardener/external-dns-management. A fix is available for github.com/gardener/external-dns-management — see the affected versions and patch details below.
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 GHSA-xwgg-m7fx-83wx.
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/gardener/external-dns-management🐹github.com/gardener/gardener-extension-shoot-dns-serviceReal-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
Gardener External DNS Management is an environment to manage external DNS entries for a kubernetes cluster. A security vulnerability was discovered in Gardener's External DNS Management prior to version 0.23.6 that could allow a user with administrative privileges for a Gardener project or a user with administrative privileges for a shoot cluster, including administrative privileges for a single namespace of the shoot cluster, to obtain control over the seed cluster where the shoot cluster is managed. This CVE affects all Gardener installations no matter of the public cloud provider(s) used for the seed clusters/shoot clusters. The affected component is gardener/external-dns-management. The external-dns-management component may also be deployed on the seeds by the gardener/gardener-extension-shoot-dns-service extension when the extension is enabled. In this case, all versions of the shoot-dns-service extension <= v1.60.0 are affected by this vulnerability. Version 0.23.6 of Gardener External DNS Management fixes the issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/gardener/external-dns-management | all versions | 0.23.6go get github.com/gardener/external-dns-management@v0.23.6 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/gardener/gardener-extension-shoot-dns-service | all versions | No fix |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/gardener/external-dns-management, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/gardener/external-dns-management to 0.23.6 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-xwgg-m7fx-83wx 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-xwgg-m7fx-83wx in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.