CVE-2022-24726 Unauthenticated control plane denial of service attack in Istio
Unauthenticated attackers can crash the Istio control plane via a crafted message if the validating webhook is publicly exposed.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2022-24726?
CVE-2022-24726 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in istio, published on 10 Mar 2022. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
Istio is an open platform to connect, manage, and secure microservices. In affected versions the Istio control plane, istiod, is vulnerable to a request processing error, allowing a malicious attacker that sends a specially crafted message which results in the control plane crashing when the validating webhook for a cluster is exposed publicly. This endpoint is served over TLS port 15017, but does not require any authentication from the attacker. For simple installations, Istiod is typically only reachable from within the cluster, limiting the blast radius. However, for some deployments, especially [external istiod](https://istio.io/latest/docs/setup/install/external-controlplane/) topologies, this port is exposed over the public internet. This issue has been patched in versions 1.13.2, 1.12.5 and 1.11.8. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade should disable access to a validating webhook that is exposed to the public internet or restrict the set of IP addresses that can query it to a set of known, trusted entities.
Weakness: CWE-400
Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-24726?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Istio Istio.
How do I fix CVE-2022-24726?
Upgrade to a fixed version.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2022-24726 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-24726 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in istio
- CVE-2021-31921 Missing authorization in n/a
- CVE-2021-34824 Information disclosure in n/a
- CVE-2026-31837 Istio JWKS resolver to prevent private key material from being exposed when JWKS fetch fails.
- CVE-2021-39155 Authorization Policy Bypass Due to Case Insensitive Host Comparison
- CVE-2021-39156 Fragments in Path May Lead to Authorization Policy Bypass
Sources
Also known as GHSA-8w5h-qr4r-2h6g.