CVE-2025-47282: Gardener External DNS Management allows malicious google credential in DNS secret to lead to privilege escalation

Should you act?

Critical, preconditions apply

Severe if exploited, but exploitation needs conditions that may not apply to you. This signal is computed from CISA KEV, EPSS and CVSS data; it is not an editorial verdict.

• No confirmed exploitation. It is not in CISA’s KEV catalog and CISA’s SSVC assessment records no known exploitation. That can change quickly after a public write-up; re-check if you are affected.
• EPSS 0.7%, percentile 54: FIRST’s model estimates a 0.7% chance of exploitation activity in the next 30 days, higher than 54% of all scored CVEs (moderate). EPSS is a probability, not a verdict.
• Needs an account (low (any account)). Exposure depends on who can log in.
• Only applies if your dependency tree includes github.com/gardener/external-dns-management (Go) < 0.23.6, fixed in 0.23.6; github.com/gardener/gardener-extension-shoot-dns-service (Go) <= 1.6.0, no fixed version listed. Check your lockfile, including transitive dependencies.

What it is

Gardener External DNS Management is an environment to manage external DNS entries for a kubernetes cluster. A security vulnerability was discovered in Gardener's External DNS Management prior to version 0.23.6 that could allow a user with administrative privileges for a Gardener project or a user with administrative privileges for a shoot cluster, including administrative privileges for a single namespace of the shoot cluster, to obtain control over the seed cluster where the shoot cluster is managed. This CVE affects all Gardener installations no matter of the public cloud provider(s) used for the seed clusters/shoot clusters. The affected component is gardener/external-dns-management. The external-dns-management component may also be deployed on the seeds by the gardener/gardener-extension-shoot-dns-service extension when the extension is enabled. In this case, all versions of the shoot-dns-service extension

From the GitHub advisory

A security vulnerability was discovered in Gardener that could allow a user with administrative privileges for a Gardener project or a user with administrative privileges for a shoot cluster, including administrative privileges for a single namespace of the shoot cluster, to obtain control over the seed cluster where the shoot cluster is managed.

Am I Vulnerable?

This CVE affects all Gardener installations no matter of the public cloud provider(s) used for the seed clusters/shoot clusters.

Affected Components

- gardener/external-dns-management

Weakness type: CWE-20, CWE-269.

Product: github.com/gardener/external-dns-management (Go) · Assigned by: GitHub_M · Published: 2025-05-19

Affected and fixed versions

Severity scores

• Attack vector: network (remotely reachable)
• Attack complexity: low
• Privileges required: low (any account)
• User interaction: none
• Scope: changed (can affect other components)

CVSS measures how bad a flaw is if exploited, not how likely exploitation is. Read it next to the exploitation data below.

Exploitation and urgency

• CISA KEV: not listed (no confirmed in-the-wild exploitation known to CISA).
• CISA SSVC assessment: exploitation none, automatable no, technical impact total.
• FIRST EPSS (model of 2026-10-21): 0.74% probability of exploitation activity in the next 30 days; percentile 54.

Timeline

• 2025-05-19 — CVE record published by GitHub_M
• 2025-05-19 — GitHub-reviewed advisory GHSA-xwgg-m7fx-83wx published (critical)
• 2025-05-20 — CVE record last updated

Sources and references

Original sources first. Version and fix details should always be confirmed against the vendor or project advisory.

Vulnerability records

1. GitHub Advisory GHSA-xwgg-m7fx-83wx github.com
2. CVE.org record CVE-2025-47282 cve.org
3. NVD entry CVE-2025-47282 nvd.nist.gov

Other references from the CVE record and advisory

1. github.com github.com

Critical Go advisories · Today’s Security Digest