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OpenAdvisories
High · 7.5 CVE-2022-23635 EUVD-2022-0904GHSA-856q-xv3c-7f2f

Unauthenticated control plane denial of service attack in Istio

Published Feb 22, 2022 · Updated Apr 23, 2025 · Assigned by GitHub_M

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. This endpoint is served over TLS port 15012, 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 [multicluster](https://istio.io/latest/docs/setup/install/multicluster/primary-remote/) topologies, this port is exposed over the public internet. There are no effective workarounds, beyond upgrading. Limiting network access to Istiod to the minimal set of clients can help lessen the scope of the vulnerability to some extent.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
istio istio >= 1.13.0, < 1.13.1, >= 1.12.0, < 1.12.4, < 1.11.7 —

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Red Hat Service Mesh 2 kiali v1.24.7.redhat1-1.el8 RHSA-2022:1276
Red Hat Service Mesh 2 servicemesh +6 2.0.9-3.el8 RHSA-2022:1276, RHSA-2022:1275
Red Hat Service Mesh 2 servicemesh-cni +1 2.1.2-4.el8 RHSA-2022:1275
Red Hat Service Mesh 2 servicemesh-prometheus 2.14.0-16.el8.1 RHSA-2022:1276

Affected packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixedRecord
Go istio.io/istio >= 1.13.0, < 1.13.1 1.13.1 GHSA-856q-xv3c-7f2f
Go istio.io/istio >= 1.12.0, < 1.12.4 1.12.4 GHSA-856q-xv3c-7f2f
Go istio.io/istio < 1.11.7 1.11.7 GHSA-856q-xv3c-7f2f

Advisories 3

References