CVE-2020-15186 Improper sanitization of plugin names in Helm

What is CVE-2020-15186?

CVE-2020-15186 is a low-severity vulnerability in helm, published on 17 Sep 2020. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

Official description

In Helm before versions 2.16.11 and 3.3.2 plugin names are not sanitized properly. As a result, a malicious plugin author could use characters in a plugin name that would result in unexpected behavior, such as duplicating the name of another plugin or spoofing the output to `helm --help`. This issue has been patched in Helm 3.3.2. A possible workaround is to not install untrusted Helm plugins. Examine the `name` field in the `plugin.yaml` file for a plugin, looking for characters outside of the [a-zA-Z0-9._-] range.

Weakness: CWE-74, CWE-20

Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-15186?

5 open source packages ship an affected version, including helm.sh/helm, helm and helm.sh/helm/v3. It affects 1 product.

Products include Helm Helm.

How do I fix CVE-2020-15186?

Upgrade helm.sh/helm to 2.16.11 or later.

Is CVE-2020-15186 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-15186 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in helm

• CVE-2019-18658 Helm Unsafe Link Following Critical 9.8
• CVE-2019-1010275 Helm Improper Certificate Validation Critical 9.8
• CVE-2019-25210 Information disclosure in n/a Critical 9.1
• CVE-2025-53547 Helm Chart Dependency Updating With Malicious Chart.yaml Content And Symlink Can Lead To Code Execution High 8.5
• CVE-2020-11013 lookup Function Information Discolosure in Helm High 8.5

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as BIT-helm-2020-15186, GHSA-m54r-vrmv-hw33.