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The CVE-2025-XXXX vulnerability in Gardener allows attackers with project admin privileges to bypass secret validation checks, leading to unauthorized control over seed clusters. The flaw occurs due to insufficient validation of user-supplied secrets during project-level authentication. When a malicious actor modifies or injects crafted secrets, Gardener fails to enforce proper access controls, allowing escalation to cluster-admin privileges. This bypass exposes the entire seed cluster infrastructure, enabling attackers to manipulate shoot clusters and compromise cloud resources.
DailyCVE Form:
Platform: Gardener
Version: <1.116.4, 1.117.0-1.117.5, 1.118.0-1.118.2
Vulnerability: Privilege Escalation
Severity: Critical
Date: May 19, 2025
What Undercode Say:
Exploitation:
1. Attacker gains project admin access.
2. Crafts malicious secrets payload.
3. Bypasses validation via API call:
curl -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer <JWT>" -d '{"secrets":{"malicious":"payload"}}' https://gardener-api/projects
4. Escalates to seed cluster control.
Mitigation:
1. Update to patched versions (1.116.4, 1.117.5, 1.118.2).
2. Enforce RBAC:
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1 kind: ClusterRole metadata: name: restrict-secret-access rules: - apiGroups: [""] resources: ["secrets"] verbs: ["get", "list"]
3. Audit logs for anomalous secret modifications:
kubectl logs -n gardener-system -l app=gardener --since=24h | grep "secret modification"
Detection:
1. Monitor for unusual API requests:
kubectl get events -n gardener-system --field-selector reason=Unauthorized
2. Check for privilege escalation attempts:
grep "forbidden" /var/log/gardener/audit.log
Remediation:
1. Revoke stale admin tokens.
2. Rotate all project secrets.
3. Apply network policies to restrict API access.
References:
- GitHub Advisory: GHSA-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx
- Patched Releases: Gardener GitHub
Sources:
Reported By: github.com
Extra Source Hub:
Undercode
