GHSA-hq4m-4948-64cc · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: go — Kyverno resource with a deletionTimestamp may allow policy circumvention
Kyverno is a policy engine designed for Kubernetes. In versions of Kyverno prior to 1.10.0, resources which have the `deletionTimestamp` field defined can bypass validate, generate, or mutate-existing policies, even in cases where the `validationFailureAction` field is set to `Enforce`. This situation occurs as resources pending deletion were being consciously exempted by Kyverno, as a way to reduce processing load as policies are typically not applied to objects which are being deleted. However, this could potentially result in allowing a malicious user to leverage the Kubernetes finalizers feature by setting a finalizer which causes the Kubernetes API server to set the `deletionTimestamp` and then not completing the delete operation as a way to explicitly to bypass a Kyverno policy. Note that this is not applicable to Kubernetes Pods but, as an example, a Kubernetes Service resource can be manipulated using an indefinite finalizer to bypass policies. This is resolved in Kyverno 1.10.0. There is no known workaround.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-34091 is rated Low Risk (30.3/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.04%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.
Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.
EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).
| # | Date | Old EPSS score | New EPSS score | Delta (New - Old) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2026-04-30 | 0.05% | 0.04% | -0.01% |
| 2 | 2026-02-24 | 0.05% | 0.05% | +0.00% |
| 3 | 2025-11-21 | — | 0.05% | — |
Full EPSS history (9 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.5 | 3.1 | MEDIUM |
|
2.8 | 3.6 | [email protected] |
| 6.5 | 3.1 | MEDIUM |
|
2.8 | 3.6 | [email protected] |
GHSA-hq4m-4948-64cc · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: go — Kyverno resource with a deletionTimestamp may allow policy circumvention
| URL | Tags |
|---|---|
| https://github.com/kyverno/kyverno/releases/tag/v1.10.0 | Release Notes |
| https://github.com/kyverno/kyverno/security/advisories/GHSA-hq4m-4948-64cc | Vendor Advisory |