CVE-2019-18817 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-835 vulnerability in istio.io/istio. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for istio.io/istio — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Istio vulnerable to denial of service
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
istio.io/istioReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Istio 1.3.x before 1.3.5 is vulnerable to denial of service because continue_on_listener_filters_timeout is set to True, a related issue to CVE-2019-18836.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | istio.io/istio | ≥ 1.3.0&&< 1.3.5 | 1.3.5go get istio.io/istio@v1.3.5 |
Affected Products
istioistioResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for istio.io/istio, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update istio.io/istio to 1.3.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2019-18817 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2019-18817 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.