# CVE-2022-21679: Authorization Policy bypass in Istio

> Attackers can bypass Istio authorization policies during version upgrades, allowing unauthorized access to services.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 19 Jan 2022
- **Updated:** 23 Apr 2025
- **Also known as:** GHSA-rwfr-xrvw-2rvv

## What is CVE-2022-21679?

CVE-2022-21679 is a medium-severity authentication bypass vulnerability in istio, published on 19 Jan 2022. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

Istio is an open platform to connect, manage, and secure microservices. In Istio 1.12.0 and 1.12.1 The authorization policy with hosts and notHosts might be accidentally bypassed for ALLOW action or rejected unexpectedly for DENY action during the upgrade from 1.11 to 1.12.0/1.12.1. Istio 1.12 supports the hosts and notHosts fields in authorization policy with a new Envoy API shipped with the 1.12 data plane. A bug in the 1.12.0 and 1.12.1 incorrectly uses the new Envoy API with the 1.11 data plane. This will cause the hosts and notHosts fields to be always matched regardless of the actual value of the host header when mixing 1.12.0/1.12.1 control plane and 1.11 data plane. Users are advised to upgrade or to not mix the 1.12.0/1.12.1 control plane with 1.11 data plane if using hosts or notHosts field in authorization policy.

Weakness: CWE-670 (Always-Incorrect Control Flow Implementation)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-21679?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Istio Istio.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-21679?

No fix has been published for CVE-2022-21679 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2022-21679 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-21679 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in istio

- [CVE-2021-31921](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-31921/): Missing authorization in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2021-34824](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-34824/): Information disclosure in n/a (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2026-31837](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-31837/): Istio JWKS resolver to prevent private key material from being exposed when JWKS fetch fails. (high 8.7)
- [CVE-2021-39155](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-39155/): Authorization Policy Bypass Due to Case Insensitive Host Comparison (high 8.3)
- [CVE-2021-39156](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-39156/): Fragments in Path May Lead to Authorization Policy Bypass (high 8.1)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2022-21679 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-21679 is a medium-severity authentication bypass vulnerability in istio, published on 19 Jan 2022. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-21679 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: istio. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-21679/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-21679/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-21679
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-21679
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-21679

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-21679/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.