CVE-2025-47281 | Kyverno's Improper JMESPath Variable Evaluation Leads to Denial of Service

Exp

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.

Published: 2025-07-23 Last update: 2025-08-05 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2025-47281 is rated Exploit Available (51.2/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.05%). Core evidence: 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Mandatory action: Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2025-47281

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2025-47281

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 2026-05-09 0.03% 0.05% +0.02%
2 2025-12-18 0.05% 0.03% -0.02%
3 2025-08-24 0.05%

Full EPSS history (4 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2025-47281

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.7 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
3.1 4.0 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2025-47281

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2025-47281

GHSA-r5p3-955p-5ggq · Severity: high · Ecosystem: go — Kyverno's Improper JMESPath Variable Evaluation Lead to Denial of Service

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2025-47281

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
kyverno kyverno < 1.14.2 cpe:2.3:a:kyverno:kyverno:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2025-47281

cvelogic Threat Intelligence