CVE-2022-39278
Prior to versions 1.15.2, 1.14.5, and 1.13.9, the Istio control plane, istiod, is vulnerable to a request processing error, allowing a malicious attacker that sends a specially crafted or oversized message which results in the control plane crashing…
Does this matter?
High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (1.43%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.
Description
Istio is an open platform-independent service mesh that provides traffic management, policy enforcement, and telemetry collection. Prior to versions 1.15.2, 1.14.5, and 1.13.9, the Istio control plane, istiod, is vulnerable to a request processing error, allowing a malicious attacker that sends a specially crafted or oversized message which results in the control plane crashing when the Kubernetes validating or mutating webhook service 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 topologies, this port is exposed over the public internet. Versions 1.15.2, 1.14.5, and 1.13.9 contain patches for this issue. There are no effective workarounds, beyond upgrading. This bug is due to an error in `regexp.Compile` in Go.
- CVSS 3.1
- 7.5 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- EPSS
- 1.43% probability · 73th percentile
- Public exploits
- None in Exploit-DB
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Weakness
- CWE-400
- Affected
- istio/istio
- Source
- security-advisories@github.com
EPSS 1.4% since 26 October 2026; no change recorded yet. Points are recorded when the score first appears and whenever it moves by a percentage point or more.
References
- https://github.com/istio/istio/security/advisories/GHSA-86vr-4wcv-mm9wThird Party Advisory
- https://istio.io/latest/news/releases/1.13.x/announcing-1.13.9/Third Party Advisory
- https://istio.io/latest/news/releases/1.15.x/announcing-1.15.2/Third Party Advisory
- https://istio.io/news/releases/1.14.x/announcing-1.14.5/Third Party Advisory
- https://github.com/istio/istio/security/advisories/GHSA-86vr-4wcv-mm9wThird Party Advisory
- https://istio.io/latest/news/releases/1.13.x/announcing-1.13.9/Third Party Advisory
- https://istio.io/latest/news/releases/1.15.x/announcing-1.15.2/Third Party Advisory
- https://istio.io/news/releases/1.14.x/announcing-1.14.5/Third Party Advisory
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.