Description
Envoy is an open source edge and service proxy designed for cloud-native applications. Prior to 1.36.10, 1.37.6, 1.38.4, and 1.39.1, Envoy HTTP RBAC accepts RFC-valid opaque header bytes but evaluates safe_regex values with RE2's UTF-8 subject semantics. A downstream client can preserve a prohibited marker and add an unrelated obs-text octet, causing RE2::FullMatch to return false and a negative RBAC policy to treat the invalid subject as an ordinary no-match. A byte-oriented route matcher can still observe the marker, allowing the request to reach a route intended to be denied. The relevant scope boundary is that plain positive ALLOW regexes normally fail closed, and exact, prefix, suffix, and contains matchers are not shown to have this subject-domain failure. This issue is fixed in versions 1.36.10, 1.37.6, 1.38.4, and 1.39.1.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| envoyproxy | envoy | < 1.36.10, >= 1.37.0, < 1.37.6, >= 1.38.0, < 1.38.4, >= 1.39.0, < 1.39.1 | — |
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.
openSUSE
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| openSUSE Tumbleweed | istioctl | 1.30.4-1.1 | openSUSE-SU-2026:11630-1 |
Amazon Linux
| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Linux 2023 | ecs-service-connect-agent | v1.39.1.0-1.amzn2023 | ALAS2023-2026-2149 |
Advisories 2
- ALAS2023-2026-2149 Important: ecs-service-connect-agent security update (Amazon Linux 2023) Amazon Linux Security Center (ALAS) · Sep 14, 2026
- openSUSE-SU-2026:11630-1 istioctl-1.30.4-1.1 on GA media SUSE / openSUSE Security Updates · Aug 29, 2026
References
- https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy/security/advisories/GHSA-23xh-2qxr-3xv8
- https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy/commit/5650cb9770d4420ec2bcbed8b90be06f564ecc07
- https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy/commit/7d1dee5dda66434d84437cc5c85153aa03955e26
- https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy/commit/c2b9a19dc081f03be6a9b4ca932673e5e7a33d18
- https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy/commit/f3726765f3a12ddc76dcb52c0b79bec3d95ced1c
- https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy/releases/tag/v1.36.10
- https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy/releases/tag/v1.37.6
- https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy/releases/tag/v1.38.4
- https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy/releases/tag/v1.39.1