CVE-2022-29178 — cilium
HIGHCVE-2022-29178 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) Incorrect Default Permissions vulnerability in github.com/cilium/cilium. A fix is available for github.com/cilium/cilium — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Incorrect Default Permissions in Cilium
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2022-29178.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2022-29178 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,636 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
github.com/cilium/cilium🐹github.com/cilium/cilium🐹github.com/cilium/ciliumReal-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
Impact
Users with host file system access on a node and the privileges to run as group ID 1000 can gain access to the per node API of Cilium via Unix domain socket on the host where Cilium is running. If a malicious user is able to gain unprivileged access to a user corresponding to this group, then they can leverage this access to compromise the integrity as well as system availability on that host. Operating Systems that have unprivileged users not belonging the group ID 1000 are not affected by this vulnerability.
Best practices for managing the secure deployment of Kubernetes clusters will typically limit the ability for a malicious user to deploy pods with access to this group or to access the host filesystem, and limit user access to the nodes for users belonging to this group. These best practices include (but are not limited to) enforcing Admission Control policies to limit the configuration of Kubernetes Pod hostPath and SecurityContext fields.
Patches
Cilium versions >=1.9.16, >=1.10.11, >=1.11.5 mitigate this issue by setting the default group to 0 (root).
Workarounds
Prevent Cilium from running with group 1000 by modifying Cilium's DaemonSet to run with the following command:
containers:
- name: cilium-agent
args:
- -c
- "groupdel cilium && cilium-agent --config-dir=/tmp/cilium/config-map"
command:
- bash
instead of
containers:
- name: cilium-agent
args:
- --config-dir=/tmp/cilium/config-map
command:
- cilium-agent
Acknowledgements
The Cilium community has worked together with members of Isovalent and Form 3 to prepare these mitigations. Special thanks to Daniel Iziourov and Daniel Teixeira for their cooperation.
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
- Email us at [email protected]
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/cilium/cilium | ≥ 1.11.0&&< 1.11.5 | 1.11.5go get github.com/cilium/cilium@v1.11.5 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/cilium/cilium | ≥ 1.10.0&&< 1.10.11 | 1.10.11go get github.com/cilium/cilium@v1.10.11 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/cilium/cilium | all versions | 1.9.16go get github.com/cilium/cilium@v1.9.16 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/cilium/cilium, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/cilium/cilium to 1.11.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-29178 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2022-29178 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2022-29178. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-29178 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2022-29178 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.