Chaos Mesh Critical GraphQL Flaws Enable RCE and Full Kubernetes Cluster Takeover

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed multiple critical vulnerabilities in Chaos Mesh, collectively named Chaotic Deputy, that could enable remote code execution and takeover of Kubernetes clusters with minimal in-cluster network access. The flaws affect the Chaos Controller Manager’s GraphQL server, which is alleged to lack sufficient authentication and could allow unauthenticated attackers to run arbitrary commands on the Chaos Daemon, potentially collapsing the entire cluster.

The issues are tracked as CVE-2025-59358 (7.5), CVE-2025-59359 (9.8), CVE-2025-59360 (9.8) and CVE-2025-59361 (9.8); an in-cluster attacker could chain CVE-2025-59359, 59360, or 59361 with 59358 to achieve clusterwide RCE, even in default configurations, according to JFrog.

Following responsible disclosure on 6 May 2025, Chaos Mesh released version 2.7.3 on 21 August 2025 to address the flaws, and users are urged to update promptly or, if patching is not immediate, to restrict traffic to the Chaos Mesh daemon and API server. This warning underlines the potential for threat actors to exfiltrate data, disrupt services, or move laterally across a cluster to escalate privileges.