CVE-2023-27484

Unchecked fieldpath index in Composition's patches can lead to arbitrary memory allocation in crossplane

MEDIUM

4.9

CVSS Score

Published: March 9, 2023 at 08:22 PM UTC

Updated: June 17, 2026 at 05:45 AM UTC

1 product affected across 1 vendorCrossplane

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Severity

MEDIUM4.9

Exploit prediction

EPSS 0.7%

SSVC

No known exploit

Description

crossplane-runtime is a set of go libraries used to build Kubernetes controllers in Crossplane and its related stacks. In affected versions an already highly privileged user able to create or update Compositions can specify an arbitrarily high index in a patch's `ToFieldPath`, which could lead to excessive memory usage once such Composition is selected for a Composite resource. Compositions allow users to specify patches inserting elements into arrays at an arbitrary index. When a Composition is selected for a Composite Resource, patches are evaluated and if a specified index is greater than the current size of the target slice, Crossplane will grow that slice up to the specified index, which could lead to an excessive amount of memory usage and therefore the Pod being OOM-Killed. The index is already capped to the maximum value for a uint32 (4294967295) when parsed, but that is still an unnecessarily large value. This issue has been addressed in versions 1.11.2, 1.10.3, and 1.9.2. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade can restrict write privileges on Compositions to only admin users as a workaround.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

Crossplane · Crossplane

95%

v < 1.10.3v < 1.11.2v < 1.9.21.10.0 ≤ v < 1.10.31.11.0 ≤ v < 1.11.21.9.0 ≤ v < 1.9.2

Affected range stops below 1.10.3, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Affected range stops below 1.11.2, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Affected range stops below 1.9.2, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

Patch and advisory references

https://github.com/crossplane/crossplane/security/advisories/GHSA-v829-x6hh-cqfq

References (1)

x_refsource_CONFIRMVendor Advisory

Source: [email protected]

https://github.com/crossplane/crossplane/security/advisories/GHSA-v829-x6hh-cqfq

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

4.9MEDIUM[email protected]

Attack Vector: NETWORK
Complexity: LOW
Privileges: HIGH
User Interaction: NONE
Scope: UNCHANGED
Confidentiality: NONE
Integrity: NONE
Availability: HIGH

Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED

CWE

CWE-20CWE-400

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