CVE-2025-47281: kyverno Improper Input Validation

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2025-47281 is a high (CVSS 7.7) Improper Input Validation vulnerability in kyverno. EPSS estimates a 0.52% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 42.7% of scored vulnerabilities. 1 public exploit is recorded.

Timeline

1. 23-07-2025
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 23-07-2025
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

Kyverno is a policy engine designed for cloud native platform engineering teams. In versions 1.14.1 and below, a Denial of Service (DoS) vulnerability exists due to improper handling of JMESPath variable substitutions. Attackers with permissions to create or update Kyverno policies can craft expressions using the {{@}} variable combined with a pipe and an invalid JMESPath function (e.g., {{@ | non_existent_function }}). This leads to a nil value being substituted into the policy structure. Subsequent processing by internal functions, specifically getValueAsStringMap, which expect string values, results in a panic due to a type assertion failure (interface {} is nil, not string). This crashes Kyverno worker threads in the admission controller and causes continuous crashes of the reports controller pod. This is fixed in version 1.14.2.

• CWE-20Improper Input ValidationThe product receives input or data, but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the input has the properties that are required to process the data safely and correctly.
• CWE-248Uncaught ExceptionAn exception is thrown from a function, but it is not caught.