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CVE-2024-12401 Moderate

cert-manager ha a potential slowdown / DoS when parsing specially crafted PEM inputs

### Impact cert-manager packages which call the standard library `pem.Decode()` function can take a long time to process specially crafted invalid PEM data. If an attacker is able to modify PEM data which cert-manager reads (e.g. in a Secret resource), they may be able to use large amounts of CPU in the cert-manager controller pod to effectively create a denial-of-service (DoS) vector for cert-manager in the cluster. Secrets are limited in size to [1MiB](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/secret/#restriction-data-size), which reduces the impact of this issue; it was discovered through an ~856kB fuzz test input which causes `pem.Decode` to take roughly 750ms to reject the input on an M2 Max Macbook Pro. By way of comparison, a valid PEM-encoded 4096-bit RSA key takes roughly 70µs to parse on the same machine. Given the required size of PEM data needed to present a realistic DoS vector, an attacker would need to create or insert many different large sized resources in the cluster, and so the best secondary defense is to ensure that sensible limits are placed via RBAC. This issue affects all versions of cert-manager to have been released since at least v0.1.0 (since `pem.Decode` is core functionality for cert-manager). All [supported releases](https://cert-manager.io/docs/releases/) are patched. ### Patches The fixed versions are v1.16.2, v1.15.4 and v1.12.14. - master branch: https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/pull/7400 - release-1.16 branch: https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/pull/7401 - release-1.15 branch: https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/pull/7402 - release-1.12 branch: https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/pull/7403 ### Workarounds Ensure that RBAC is scoped correctly in your cluster. If a user is able to modify resources containing PEM data to be able to exploit this, it's like that those permissions are a bigger security threat than this issue - especially for Secret resources. ### References - Upstream issue: https://github.com/golang/go/issues/50116 - Similar issue: https://github.com/sigstore/sigstore/issues/198 - Google OSSFuzz: https://issues.oss-fuzz.com/issues/376728466

Exploit probability 0.6%
Published November 20, 2024
Required by Not available
Last source change June 5, 2026

02 / AFFECTED SOFTWARE

Affected packages

Unknown Unknown

148 explicit affected versions

Go github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager
Go github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager
Go github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager

03 / CONNECTIONS

Connected vulnerabilities

04 / EVIDENCE

Source records

Open Source Vulnerabilities CVE-2024-12401

A flaw was found in the cert-manager package. This flaw allows an attacker who can modify PEM data that the cert-manager reads, for example, in a Secret resource, to use large amounts of CPU in the cert-manager controller pod to effectively create a denial-of-service (DoS) vector for the cert-manager in the cluster.

View original source
Open Source Vulnerabilities GHSA-r4pg-vg54-wxx4

### Impact cert-manager packages which call the standard library `pem.Decode()` function can take a long time to process specially crafted invalid PEM data. If an attacker is able to modify PEM data which cert-manager reads (e.g. in a Secret resource), they may be able to use large amounts of CPU in the cert-manager controller pod to effectively create a denial-of-service (DoS) vector for cert-manager in the cluster. Secrets are limited in size to [1MiB](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/secret/#restriction-data-size), which reduces the impact of this issue; it was discovered through an ~856kB fuzz test input which causes `pem.Decode` to take roughly 750ms to reject the input on an M2 Max Macbook Pro. By way of comparison, a valid PEM-encoded 4096-bit RSA key takes roughly 70µs to parse on the same machine. Given the required size of PEM data needed to present a realistic DoS vector, an attacker would need to create or insert many different large sized resources in the cluster, and so the best secondary defense is to ensure that sensible limits are placed via RBAC. This issue affects all versions of cert-manager to have been released since at least v0.1.0 (since `pem.Decode` is core functionality for cert-manager). All [supported releases](https://cert-manager.io/docs/releases/) are patched. ### Patches The fixed versions are v1.16.2, v1.15.4 and v1.12.14. - master branch: https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/pull/7400 - release-1.16 branch: https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/pull/7401 - release-1.15 branch: https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/pull/7402 - release-1.12 branch: https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/pull/7403 ### Workarounds Ensure that RBAC is scoped correctly in your cluster. If a user is able to modify resources containing PEM data to be able to exploit this, it's like that those permissions are a bigger security threat than this issue - especially for Secret resources. ### References - Upstream issue: https://github.com/golang/go/issues/50116 - Similar issue: https://github.com/sigstore/sigstore/issues/198 - Google OSSFuzz: https://issues.oss-fuzz.com/issues/376728466

View original source
Open Source Vulnerabilities GO-2024-3282

Potential slowdown / DoS when parsing specially crafted PEM inputs in github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager

View original source
Open Source Vulnerabilities GHSA-ghw8-3xqw-hhcj

# Duplicate Advisory This advisory has been withdrawn because it is a duplicate of GHSA-r4pg-vg54-wxx4. This link is maintained to preserve external references. # Original Description A flaw was found in the cert-manager package. This flaw allows an attacker who can modify PEM data that the cert-manager reads, for example, in a Secret resource, to use large amounts of CPU in the cert-manager controller pod to effectively create a denial-of-service (DoS) vector for the cert-manager in the cluster.

View original source

05 / REFERENCES

Further evidence