{"id":36022,"date":"2025-05-07T09:32:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T09:32:10","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-06-22T11:35:38","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T17:35:38","slug":"cve-2025-46342-kyverno-policy-engine-vulnerability-enables-unauthorized-actions-in-kubernetes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-46342-kyverno-policy-engine-vulnerability-enables-unauthorized-actions-in-kubernetes\/","title":{"rendered":"<strong>CVE-2025-46342: Kyverno Policy Engine Vulnerability Enables Unauthorized Actions in Kubernetes<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CVE-2025-46342 is a critical vulnerability affecting Kyverno, a policy engine designed for Kubernetes (K8s) that is widely used by cloud-native platform engineering teams. This vulnerability has the potential to permit unauthorized actions within K8s, and by extension, could lead to a system compromise or data leakage.<br \/>\nAs cloud-native technologies continue to dominate the IT landscape, ensuring robust <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/unmasking-cyber-threats-us-enterprises-face-increasing-security-breaches-despite-heavy-investment\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"60297\">security becomes increasingly<\/a> important. This vulnerability in Kyverno, if left unpatched, could have serious implications, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2021-40367-critical-vulnerability-in-syngo-fastview-allows-potential-system-compromise\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"40952\">potentially allowing<\/a> attackers to bypass security-critical mutations and validations and perform malicious operations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vulnerability Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CVE ID: CVE-2025-46342<br \/>\nSeverity: High (8.5 CVSS Score)<br \/>\nAttack Vector: Network<br \/>\nPrivileges Required: Low<br \/>\nUser Interaction: None<br \/>\nImpact: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2023-34322-inadequate-precaution-in-xen-s-shadow-paging-leads-to-potential-system-compromise\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"40993\">Potential system<\/a> compromise or data leakage<\/p>\n<p><strong>Affected Products<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-4100957890\" class=\"ameeb-content-2 ameeb-entity-placement\"><div style=\"border-left: 4px solid #555; padding-left: 20px; margin: 48px 0; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.6; max-width: 700px;\">\r\n  <h2 style=\"margin-top: 0; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 600; display: flex; align-items: center;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"display: inline-flex; align-items: center; margin-right: 8px;\">\r\n      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Best-App-icon-Ameeba.png\" alt=\"Ameeba Chat Icon\" style=\"width: 40px; height: 40px;\" \/>\r\n    <\/a>\r\n    A new way to communicate\r\n  <\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 12px;\">\r\n    Ameeba Chat is built on encrypted identity, not personal profiles.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 16px;\">\r\n    Message, call, share files, and coordinate with identities kept separate.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <ul style=\"list-style: none; padding-left: 0; margin-bottom: 20px;\">\r\n    <li>\u2022 Encrypted identity<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Ameeba Chat authenticates access<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Aliases and categories<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 End-to-end encrypted chat, calls, and files<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Secure notes for sensitive information<\/li>\r\n  <\/ul>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"font-style: italic; font-weight: 600; margin-bottom: 24px;\">\r\n    Private communication, rethought.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <div style=\"display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; gap: 12px;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\/download\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; font-weight: 500;\">Download Ameeba Chat<\/a>\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ffffff; color: #ffffff; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; font-weight: 500;\">Learn More<\/a>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n<p>Product | Affected Versions<\/p>\n<p>Kyverno | < 1.13.5\nKyverno | < 1.14.0\n\n<strong>How the Exploit Works<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This vulnerability stems from a failure to correctly apply <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-4083-process-isolation-vulnerability-in-thunderbird-and-firefox-due-to-improper-handling-of-javascript-uris\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"41668\">policy<\/a> rules that use namespace selectors in their match statements during the admission review request processing. This is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-41651-critical-system-compromise-due-to-missing-authentication\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"60296\">due to a missing<\/a> error propagation in the function `GetNamespaceSelectorsFromNamespaceLister` in `pkg\/utils\/engine\/labels.go`. As a result, an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2021-47663-unauthenticated-remote-attacker-gaining-full-access-due-to-improper-json-web-tokens-implementation\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"41645\">attacker with K8s API access<\/a> could potentially bypass security-critical mutations and validations, permitting them to execute malicious operations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conceptual Example Code<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-47154-exploitation-of-use-after-free-vulnerability-in-libjs-in-ladybird\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"42911\">vulnerability doesn&#8217;t necessitate a specific payload to be exploited<\/a>. Instead, it&#8217;s the lack of policy rule enforcement that can be leveraged. However, an attacker would need <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-45616-incorrect-access-control-vulnerability-in-the-admin-api-of-brcc-v1-2-0\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"43323\">access to the K8s API<\/a>, which could potentially be done using a command like this:<\/p><div id=\"ameeb-1164911815\" class=\"ameeb-content ameeb-entity-placement\"><div class=\"poptin-embedded\" data-id=\"f6b387694f681\"><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\n<pre><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">kubectl exec -it pod-name -- \/bin\/bash<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>This command would provide the attacker with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-46625-root-shell-access-exploit-in-tenda-rx2-pro-router\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"42910\">shell access<\/a> to the specified pod. From here, the attacker could potentially perform a plethora of malicious operations, given the lack of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-31019-authentication-bypass-vulnerability-in-miniorange-password-policy-manager\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"60295\">policy rule enforcement caused by this vulnerability<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Overview CVE-2025-46342 is a critical vulnerability affecting Kyverno, a policy engine designed for Kubernetes (K8s) that is widely used by cloud-native platform engineering teams. This vulnerability has the potential to permit unauthorized actions within K8s, and by extension, could lead to a system compromise or data leakage. As cloud-native technologies continue to dominate the IT [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"vendor":[89],"product":[],"attack_vector":[],"asset_type":[],"severity":[],"exploit_status":[],"class_list":["post-36022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","vendor-kubernetes"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36022"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54028,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36022\/revisions\/54028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36022"},{"taxonomy":"vendor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vendor?post=36022"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=36022"},{"taxonomy":"attack_vector","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/attack_vector?post=36022"},{"taxonomy":"asset_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/asset_type?post=36022"},{"taxonomy":"severity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/severity?post=36022"},{"taxonomy":"exploit_status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exploit_status?post=36022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}