CVE-2023-35165AWS CDK EKS overly permissive trust policies
- 6.6MediumCVSS base score
- 0.90%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 40% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) is an open-source software development framework to define cloud infrastructure in code and provision it through AWS CloudFormation. In the packages `aws-cdk-lib` 2.0.0 until 2.80.0 and `@aws-cdk/aws-eks` 1.57.0 until 1.202.0, `eks.Cluster` and `eks.FargateCluster` constructs create two roles, `CreationRole` and `default MastersRole`, that have an overly permissive trust policy. The first, referred to as the `CreationRole`, is used by lambda handlers to create the cluster and deploy Kubernetes resources (e.g `KubernetesManifest`, `HelmChart`, ...) onto it. Users with CDK version higher or equal to 1.62.0 (including v2 users) may be affected. The second, referred to as the `default MastersRole`, is provisioned only if the `mastersRole` property isn't provided and has permissions to execute `kubectl` commands on the cluster. Users with CDK version higher or equal to 1.57.0 (including v2 users) may be affected. The issue has been fixed in `@aws-cdk/aws-eks` v1.202.0 and `aws-cdk-lib` v2.80.0. These versions no longer use the account root principal. Instead, they restrict the trust policy to the specific roles of lambda handlers that need it. There is no workaround available for CreationRole. To avoid creating the `default MastersRole`, use the `mastersRole` property to explicitly provide a role.
Timeline
ID reserved
By GitHub_M
- 9 days later
· 9 days later
Published
- 18 months later
· 18 months later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub_MCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | Medium6.6 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | High8.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.90% · top 40% of all CVEs (13 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: total
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 6.6.
Affected products
Affected packages
From reviewed advisories of the GitHub Advisory Database.
- npm@aws-cdk/aws-eksGHSA-rx28-r23p-2qc3 (opens in a new tab)
- npmaws-cdk-libGHSA-rx28-r23p-2qc3 (opens in a new tab)
References
References2
- https://github.com/aws/aws-cdk/security/advisories/GHSA-rx28-r23p-2qc3 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMx_transferred
- https://github.com/aws/aws-cdk/issues/25674 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2023-1884 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisory GHSA-rx28-r23p-2qc3 (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2023-35165)Record last updated .