CVE-2023-37900

Denial of service from large image

Workarounds

Only using images from trusted sources and keeping Package editing/creating privileges to administrators only, which should be both considered already best practices.

References

See ADA-XP-23-16 in the Security Audit's report.

Credits

This was reported as ADA-XP-23-16 by @AdamKorcz and @DavidKorczynski from Ada Logic and facilitated by OSTIF as part of the Security Audit sponsored by CNCF.

An high-privileged user could create a Package referencing an arbitrarily large image containing that Crossplane would then parse, possibly resulting in exhausting all the available memory and therefore in the container being OOMKilled.

The impact is low due to the high privileges required to be able to create the Package and the eventually consistency nature of controller.

Crafted input forces the application to consume excessive CPU, memory, or other resources, degrading or denying service. Typical impact: denial of service.

CVE-2023-37900 has a CVSS score of 3.4 (Low). The vector is network-reachable, high privileges required, and user interaction required. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. A fixed version is available (1.11.5, 1.12.3); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.

Kodem intelligence

Already deployed Kodem?

The problem has been fixed in 1.11.5, 1.12.3 and 1.13.0, all the supported versions of Crossplane at the time of writing.

1. What is CVE-2023-37900? CVE-2023-37900 is a low-severity uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability in github.com/crossplane/crossplane (go), affecting versions < 1.11.5. It is fixed in 1.11.5, 1.12.3. Crafted input forces the application to consume excessive CPU, memory, or other resources, degrading or denying service.
2. How severe is CVE-2023-37900? CVE-2023-37900 has a CVSS score of 3.4 (Low). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
3. Which versions of github.com/crossplane/crossplane are affected by CVE-2023-37900? github.com/crossplane/crossplane (go) versions < 1.11.5 is affected.
4. Is there a fix for CVE-2023-37900? Yes. CVE-2023-37900 is fixed in 1.11.5, 1.12.3. Upgrade to this version or later.
5. Is CVE-2023-37900 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2023-37900 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
6. What actually determines whether CVE-2023-37900 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
7. How do I fix CVE-2023-37900?
   • Upgrade github.com/crossplane/crossplane to 1.11.5 or later
   • Upgrade github.com/crossplane/crossplane to 1.12.3 or later

Other vulnerabilities in github.com/crossplane/crossplane