CVE-2025-54470: NeuVector telemetry sender is vulnerable to MITM and DoS

This vulnerability affects NeuVector deployments only when the Report anonymous cluster data option is enabled. When this option is enabled, NeuVector sends anonymous telemetry data to the telemetry server at https://upgrades.neuvector-upgrade-responder.livestock.rancher.io.

In affected versions, NeuVector does not enforce TLS certificate verification when transmitting anonymous cluster data to the telemetry server. As a result, the communication channel is susceptible to man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks, where an attacker could intercept or modify the transmitted data. Additionally, NeuVector loads the response of the telemetry server is loaded into memory without size limitation, which makes it vulnerable to a Denial of Service(DoS) attack.

The patched version includes the following security improvements:

• NeuVector now verifies the telemetry server’s TLS certificate chain and hostname during the handshake process. This ensures that all telemetry communications occur over a trusted and verified channel.
• NeuVector limits the telemetry server’s response to 256 bytes, mitigating the risk of memory exhaustion and DoS attacks.

These security enhancements are enabled by default and require no user action.