CVE-2020-4053 Path Traversal in Helm Plugin Archive

What is CVE-2020-4053?

CVE-2020-4053 is a low-severity path traversal vulnerability in The Helm Project Helm, published on 16 Jun 2020. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

Official description

In Helm greater than or equal to 3.0.0 and less than 3.2.4, a path traversal attack is possible when installing Helm plugins from a tar archive over HTTP. It is possible for a malicious plugin author to inject a relative path into a plugin archive, and copy a file outside of the intended directory. This has been fixed in 3.2.4.

Weakness: CWE-22

Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-4053?

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

Products include Helm Helm.

How do I fix CVE-2020-4053?

Upgrade helm.sh/helm/v3 to 3.2.4 or later.

Upgrade, and resolve every user-supplied path against an allowed base folder before opening it. More about Path traversal.

Is CVE-2020-4053 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-4053 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in The Helm Project 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-2020-4053, GHSA-qq3j-xp49-j73f.