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OS Command InjectionWeakness · CWE-78

CVE-2025-53542

HIGH · 7.7 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-07-10
Patch available
A vendor patch is available. No clean upgrade release — apply the published patch.
See remediation →
80/100
Remediation priority · High
No privileges Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Headlamp is an extensible Kubernetes web UI. A command injection vulnerability was discovered in the codeSign.js script used in the macOS packaging workflow of the Kubernetes Headlamp project. This issue arises due to the improper use of Node.js's execSync() function with unsanitized input derived from environment variables, which can be influenced by an attacker. The variables ${teamID}, ${entitlementsPath}, and ${config.app} are dynamically derived from the environment or application config and passed directly to the shell command without proper escaping or argument separation. This exposes the system to command injection if any of the values contain malicious input. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.31.1.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-78

User input reaches a shell or system command without being fully separated from the command itself, so an attacker can append their own instructions. Because these run with the application's privileges, it often means full control of the host. The lasting fix is to avoid the shell entirely — call APIs directly and pass arguments as data, never as concatenated strings.

General guidance for the os command injection class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
High
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Patch available Apply the vendor patch
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

0.31.1

  1. Upgrade Headlamp to version 0.31.1 or later to address the command injection vulnerability
  2. If maintaining a custom fork, review the codeSign.js script and ensure execSync() calls use proper argument separation (e.g., spawn with array arguments) instead of shell string interpolation
  3. Audit environment variables (teamID, entitlementsPath, config.app) to ensure they are not controlled by untrusted sources in CI/CD pipelines
  4. After upgrade, verify the macOS packaging workflow completes successfully

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-53542 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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What belongs here
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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