CVE-2025-47283
📋 TL;DR
A privilege escalation vulnerability in Gardener allows project administrators to gain control over seed clusters managing their shoot clusters. This affects all Gardener installations regardless of cloud provider. The vulnerability is in the gardenlet component and enables administrative takeover of underlying infrastructure.
💻 Affected Systems
- gardener/gardener (gardenlet)
📦 What is this software?
Gardener by Gardener
Gardener by Gardener
Gardener by Gardener
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Complete compromise of seed clusters leading to control over all managed Kubernetes clusters, data exfiltration, service disruption, and lateral movement to other projects.
Likely Case
Project administrators exploiting legitimate access to escalate privileges and gain unauthorized control over seed infrastructure, potentially affecting multiple shoot clusters.
If Mitigated
Limited to authorized project administrators who must actively exploit the vulnerability; proper access controls and monitoring could detect and contain the escalation.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires existing administrative access to a Gardener project. No public exploit code identified at this time.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: 1.116.4, 1.117.5, 1.118.2, or 1.119.0
Vendor Advisory: https://github.com/gardener/gardener/security/advisories/GHSA-3hw7-qj9h-r835
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Identify current Gardener version. 2. Upgrade to patched version (1.116.4, 1.117.5, 1.118.2, or 1.119.0). 3. Restart gardenlet components. 4. Verify upgrade completion and functionality.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Restrict Project Administrator Access
allTemporarily reduce the number of users with project administrator privileges to minimize attack surface.
Enhanced Monitoring of Administrative Actions
allImplement additional logging and alerting for administrative operations on seed clusters.
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Implement strict least-privilege access controls for project administrators
- Deploy network segmentation between project and seed cluster management planes
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check Gardener version: if running version older than 1.116.4, 1.117.5, 1.118.2, or 1.119.0, system is vulnerable.Check Version:
kubectl get pods -n garden -l app=gardenlet -o jsonpath='{.items[*].spec.containers[*].image}' | grep -o 'gardener/gardener:[^ ]*'Verify Fix Applied:
Confirm Gardener version is 1.116.4, 1.117.5, 1.118.2, or 1.119.0 and verify gardenlet component is running patched version.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unusual administrative operations on seed clusters from project administrators
- Privilege escalation attempts in gardenlet logs
- Unexpected configuration changes to seed cluster resources
Network Indicators:
- Unusual API calls from project namespaces to seed cluster control plane
- Anomalous traffic patterns between shoot and seed clusters
SIEM Query:
source="gardener-logs" AND ("privilege escalation" OR "unauthorized seed access" OR "project admin to seed cluster")🔗 References
- https://github.com/gardener/gardener/commit/924b1575aae052bcda5a51fac8594d38fa3c41b0
- https://github.com/gardener/gardener/commit/b89cf2cd5067e82f364063d5241af73650a6e11d
- https://github.com/gardener/gardener/commit/bbd19b1dd3a31843d7b820172d37f75298dfaf8b
- https://github.com/gardener/gardener/commit/cf4e9887d83902216b85609caf563f7a9dd2de00
- https://github.com/gardener/gardener/security/advisories/GHSA-3hw7-qj9h-r835
