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Fencer Intel
high 7.5

CVE-2022-23635 json

Unauthenticated control plane denial of service attack in Istio

published 4y ago modified last mo. also GHSA-856q-xv3c-7f2f , EUVD-2022-0904

cvss
7.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.7%
EPSS 1.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 76%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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.

Patch / fix

  • go istio.io/istio 1.11.7, 1.12.4, 1.13.1
  • istio istio 1.11.7, 1.12.4, 1.13.1
  • kiali service mesh 2.0 v1.24.7.redhat1-1.el8
  • servicemesh service mesh 2.0 2.0.9-3.el8
  • servicemesh-mixc service mesh 2.0 2.0.9-3.el8
  • servicemesh-mixs service mesh 2.0 2.0.9-3.el8
  • servicemesh-proxy service mesh 2.0 2.0.9-3.el8
  • servicemesh-istioctl service mesh 2.0 2.0.9-3.el8
  • servicemesh-prometheus service mesh 2.0 2.14.0-16.el8.1
  • servicemesh-pilot-agent service mesh 2.0 2.0.9-3.el8

red hat advisories RHSA-2022:1276RHSA-2022:1275

Is CVE-2022-23635 in your dependencies? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2022-23635 updated cvss 7.5

istio: unauthenticated control plane denial of service attack

  • Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh 2.0 servicemesh 2.0.9-3.el8, servicemesh-mixc 2.0.9-3.el8, servicemesh-mixs 2.0.9-3.el8, servicemesh-istioctl 2.0.9-3.el8, servicemesh-pilot-agent 2.0.9-3.el8, servicemesh-pilot-discovery 2.0.9-3.el8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2022:1276
  • Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh 2.1 servicemesh 2.1.2-4.el8, servicemesh-cni 2.1.2-4.el8, servicemesh-pilot-agent 2.1.2-4.el8, servicemesh-pilot-discovery 2.1.2-4.el8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2022:1275
  • Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh 2.0 kiali v1.24.7.redhat1-1.el8, servicemesh-cni 2.0.9-3.el8, servicemesh-proxy 2.0.9-3.el8, servicemesh-operator 2.0.9-3.el8, servicemesh-prometheus 2.14.0-16.el8.1 Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh 2.1 servicemesh-proxy 2.1.2-4.el8, servicemesh-operator 2.1.2-4.el8, servicemesh-ratelimit 2.1.2-4.el8, servicemesh-proxy-wasm 2.1.2-4.el8, servicemesh-prometheus 2.23.0-5.el8
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
last yr.

Exploit prediction

1.65% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 76% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
GitHub 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
go istio.io/istio
>=1.13.0, <1.13.1
>=1.12.0, <1.12.4
<1.11.7
1.13.1
1.12.4
1.11.7

Affected products

  • istio istio

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-287 Improper Authentication
  • CWE-1284 Improper Validation of Specified Quantity in Input

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.