NVD / CVE Program· CNA GitHub_M

CVE-2022-36055: Denial of service in Helm

Noroxi assessment

Priority: Monitor (action score 26/100)

The sources we track (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei, GitHub) show no public exploit code or exploitation in the wild.
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days: 1.1% (FIRST EPSS); higher than 65.9% of all records.
Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it. A low-privileged account is enough. No user action is required. No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.
Fixed version: helm.sh/helm/v3 (Go) 3.9.4; helm (openSUSE:Leap 15.3) 3.9.4-150000.1.10.3; helm (openSUSE:Tumbleweed) 3.9.4-2.1.

Low priority for now. Upgrade to helm.sh/helm/v3 (Go) 3.9.4; helm (openSUSE:Leap 15.3) 3.9.4-150000.1.10.3; helm (openSUSE:Tumbleweed) 3.9.4-2.1 or later.

Generated automatically from the record's data: CVSS (NVD and CNA), CISA KEV and SSVC, FIRST EPSS, exploit sources, fixed versions. How we calculate it

Primary sources: NVD · CVE.org · FIRST EPSS

Helm is a tool for managing Charts. Charts are packages of pre-configured Kubernetes resources. Fuzz testing, provided by the CNCF, identified input to functions in the _strvals_ package that can cause an out of memory panic. The _strvals_ package contains a parser that turns strings in to Go structures. The _strvals_ package converts these strings into structures Go can work with. Some string inputs can cause array data structures to be created causing an out of memory panic. Applications that use the _strvals_ package in the Helm SDK to parse user supplied input can suffer a Denial of Service when that input causes a panic that cannot be recovered from. The Helm Client will panic with input to `--set`, `--set-string`, and other value setting flags that causes an out of memory panic. Helm is not a long running service so the panic will not affect future uses of the Helm client. This issue has been resolved in 3.9.4. SDK users can validate strings supplied by users won't create large arrays causing significant memory usage before passing them to the _strvals_ functions.

MediumCVSS 6.5 · v3.1—No exploit Fix available

Denial of service

Published: Sep 1, 2022
Updated: Jun 17, 2026
EPSS: 1.1% · 65th percentile
CWE: CWE-400

Report tools

JSON

Action score

Monitor

Low priority for now.

CVSS: 26 / 40 · 6.5 / 10
CISA KEV: 0 / 30 · Not listed
EPSS: 0 / 30 · 1.1%

CISA SSVC decision

Exploitation: none
Automatable: no
Technical impact: partial

Vulnrichment: CISA's decision-tree inputs.

CNA vs NVD score

NVD: 6.5
CNA · GitHub_M: 6.5; agree

The score given by the assigning authority versus NVD’s independent score. A gap means the severity is contested.

Get told when this record changes

Not in KEV: no record of exploitation in the wild
No public exploit code on record
A fix has been released

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Noroxi analysis

What does it mean in your environment?

The assessment above is generated automatically from the record's data; it doesn't know your environment. Our team verifies on your systems whether this vulnerability is actually exploitable and which mitigation is enough.

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Affected systems

Is your version affected?

Pick the product and type the version you run. It's compared with this record's version ranges in your browser; the version isn't sent anywhere.

Vendor	Product	CPE
helm	helm	cpe:2.3:a:helm:helm

Affected versions

NVD version ranges (for catalog products). Add the product to your stack with a version and matching uses these.

helm helm3.0.0 and later · before 3.9.4

Versions reported by the vendor

Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (GitHub_M). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.

helm helm
- < 3.9.4affected

Package-level exposure

OSV and GitHub Advisory data: ecosystem, package and range. SBOM matching uses this table.

Ecosystem	Package	Affected range	Fix
Go	helm.sh/helm/v3	before 3.9.4	3.9.4
openSUSE:Leap 15.3	helm	before 3.9.4-150000.1.10.3	3.9.4-150000.1.10.3
openSUSE:Tumbleweed	helm	before 3.9.4-2.1	3.9.4-2.1
openSUSE:Tumbleweed	helm3	before 3.19.2-1.1	3.19.2-1.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Containers 15 SP3	helm	before 3.9.4-150000.1.10.3	3.9.4-150000.1.10.3

Same product

helm: all records

Other highest-scoring records for the same primary product.

CVE-2019-18658In Helm 2.x before 2.15.2, commands that deal with loading a chart as a directory or packaging a chart provide an opportunity for a maliciou
40Plan
CVE-2019-1010275helm Before 2.7.2 is affected by: CWE-295: Improper Certificate Validation.
39Monitor
CVE-2025-53547Helm Chart Dependency Updating With Malicious Chart.yaml Content And Symlink Can Lead To Code Execution
34Monitor

Published before and after this one in the same product

← EarlierCVE-2021-21303Feb 5, 2021 · Injection attack in Helm
27Monitor
← EarlierCVE-2021-32690Jun 16, 2021 · Repository credentials passed to alternate domain
34Monitor
Later →CVE-2022-36049Sep 7, 2022 · Flux2 Helm Controller denial of service
30Monitor

Remediation

Which version to upgrade to

Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.

Product / package	Fixed version	Source
Go:helm.sh/helm/v3	3.9.4	Package registry (OSV)
opensuse:helm	3.9.4-150000.1.10.3 · openSUSE:Leap 15.3	Package registry (OSV)
opensuse:helm3	3.19.2-1.1 · openSUSE:Tumbleweed	Package registry (OSV)
suse:helm	3.9.4-150000.1.10.3 · SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Containers 15 SP3	Package registry (OSV)

Exploit status

No known public exploit

No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.

Research context

For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.

Timeline

From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.

No dated events beyond publication.

EPSS, last 120 days

FIRST EPSS daily score; only changes of 0.01 or more are recorded (step chart).

Patch and commit links

Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.

No commit or PR link among the references.

Credits

All researchers

Finders, reporters and analysts named in the CNA record. Click a name for that researcher’s other records.

No credits in the CNA record.

Variant candidates

Same product, same weakness class, within 18 months. If the patch missed the root cause, the sibling bug is here.

No nightly-computed relations.

Chain candidates

An authentication bypass and a privilege-requiring bug in the same product, published close together: combined they may become an unauthenticated path.

—

Bug bounty scope

No known public program.

Source: bounty-targets-data (public HackerOne, Bugcrowd, Intigriti, YesWeHack listings).

Technical details

Attack conditions

Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it.
A low-privileged account is enough.
No user action is required.
No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.

If successful

Confidentiality: none
Integrity: none
Availability: high · the service can be disrupted

Attack vector: Network
Attack complexity: Low
Privileges required: Low
User interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality impact: None
Integrity impact: None
Availability impact: High

Weakness class (CWE)

CWE-400 · Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

nvd-primary

Root cause

Code that parses nested structures sets no depth or size limit. A small input can turn into a disproportionate processing load.

The bug in code

The whole CWE-400 class

A representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.

Vulnerable

1function expand(node) {
2  return node.children.map(expand);
3}

Fixed

1const MAX_DEPTH = 32;
2function expand(node, depth = 0) {
3  if (depth > MAX_DEPTH) throw new Error("too deep");
4  return node.children.map((c) => expand(c, depth + 1));
5}