CVE-2025-48056
📋 TL;DR
This CVE describes an injection vulnerability in Hubble CLI where network attackers can inject malicious control characters into terminal output when monitoring Kafka traffic with Layer 7 Protocol Visibility. This could allow attackers to manipulate or conceal log output, potentially hiding malicious activity. Only Hubble CLI users monitoring Kafka traffic with specific features enabled are affected.
💻 Affected Systems
- Hubble CLI
⚠️ Manual Verification Required
This CVE does not have specific version information in our database, so automatic vulnerability detection cannot determine if your system is affected.
Why? The CVE database entry doesn't specify which versions are vulnerable (no version ranges provided by the vendor/NVD).
🔒 Custom verification scripts are available for registered users. Sign up free to download automated test scripts.
- Review the CVE details at NVD
- Check vendor security advisories for your specific version
- Test if the vulnerability is exploitable in your environment
- Consider updating to the latest version as a precaution
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Attackers could completely rewrite terminal output to hide critical security events, manipulate logs to mislead investigators, or make the terminal temporarily unusable for monitoring.
Likely Case
Attackers could conceal specific log entries or modify output to hide malicious network activity being monitored through Hubble.
If Mitigated
With proper controls like output sanitization or using log files instead of terminal output, the impact is limited to potential minor output corruption.
🎯 Exploit Status
Requires attacker to be on the network path and victim to be actively monitoring Kafka traffic with specific features
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: 1.17.2
Vendor Advisory: https://github.com/cilium/hubble/security/advisories/GHSA-274q-79q9-52j7
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Stop Hubble CLI service. 2. Upgrade to version 1.17.2 or later. 3. Restart Hubble CLI service.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Redirect output to log file
allDirect Hubble flows to a log file instead of terminal output to avoid control character injection
hubble observe --output json > hubble_logs.json
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Disable Layer 7 Protocol Visibility for Kafka traffic monitoring
- Use text editors to inspect Hubble output instead of terminal display
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check Hubble CLI version: if version < 1.17.2 and Kafka monitoring with Layer 7 visibility is enabled, system is vulnerableCheck Version:
hubble versionVerify Fix Applied:
Verify Hubble CLI version is 1.17.2 or later and test Kafka traffic monitoring functionality📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unexpected control characters in Hubble terminal output
- Missing or corrupted log entries in monitoring output
Network Indicators:
- Malicious control characters in Kafka traffic being monitored
SIEM Query:
source="hubble" AND (message="*\x1b*" OR message="*\x07*" OR message="*\x08*")