CyberRota Analysis
AI-GeneratedKubernetes clusters using etcd versions prior to 3.5.33, 3.6.14, and 3.7.1 are vulnerable to a denial-of-service attack, where an attacker can exploit the TLS listener by opening multiple TCP connections without completing the handshake, leading to unbounded growth of goroutines and memory exhaustion. This vulnerability can result in the loss of availability for the etcd process and, consequently, the Kubernetes control plane. Organizations running affected versions should prioritize upgrading to the patched versions to mitigate this high-severity risk.
Public Exploit Signal
A public exploit, PoC, GitHub repository or Metasploit reference was detected for this CVE.
Note: these links are listed for security research and verification purposes only.
Original NVD Description
etcd is a distributed key-value store for the data of a distributed system. Prior to versions 3.5.33, 3.6.14, and 3.7.1, a network attacker who can reach an etcd TLS listener can open many TCP connections and never send a ClientHello. In client/pkg/transport/listener_tls.go, each connection handled by tlsListener.acceptLoop spawns a goroutine that blocks indefinitely inside tls.Conn.Handshake() and remains tracked in the pending map. Unbounded goroutine and map growth can exhaust memory in the etcd process, causing loss of availability for the cluster and, when etcd backs Kubernetes, the control plane. This issue is fixed in versions 3.5.33, 3.6.14, and 3.7.1.