Plugin archive directory traversal in Helm

Overview

The Helm core maintainers have identified an information disclosure vulnerability in Helm 3.0.0-3.2.3.

Impact

A traversal attack is possible when installing Helm plugins from a tar archive over HTTP. It is possible for a malicious plugin author to inject a relative path into a plugin archive, and copy a file outside of the intended directory.

Traversal Attacks are a form of a Directory Traversal that can be exploited by extracting files from an archive. The premise of the Directory Traversal vulnerability is that an attacker can gain access to parts of the file system outside of the target folder in which they should reside. The attacker can then overwrite executable files and either invoke them remotely or wait for the system or user to call them, thus achieving Remote Command Execution on the victim's machine. The vulnerability can also cause damage by overwriting configuration files or other sensitive resources, and can be exploited on both client (user) machines and servers.

https://snyk.io/research/zip-slip-vulnerability

Specific Go Packages Affected

helm.sh/helm/v3/pkg/plugin/installer

Patches

This issue has been fixed in Helm 3.2.4

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

• Open an issue in the Helm repository
• For security-specific issues, email us at [email protected]

Affected packages

• helm.sh/helm/v3 >= 3.0.0, < 3.2.4

Remediation

Upgrade to a patched release:

• helm.sh/helm/v3 3.2.4