CVE-2026-65838 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.2) CWE-754 vulnerability in github.com/zalando/skipper. A fix is available for github.com/zalando/skipper — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Skipper: an oversized declared-`Content-Length` body still hands OPA an empty `parsed_body`, so deny-on-presence Rego policies fail OPEN while the full payload reaches upstream
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- 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-2026-65838.
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-2026-65838 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 377,166 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/zalando/skipperReal-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
Skipper is an HTTP router and reverse proxy for service composition. Prior to 0.27.35, the opaAuthorizeRequestWithBody filter in filters/openpolicyagent/openpolicyagent.go can allow an oversized declared Content-Length request to bypass a deny-on-presence Rego policy because ExtractHttpBodyOptionally leaves OPA with an empty parsed_body while forwarding the complete request body upstream. This incomplete remediation of CVE-2026-50197 affects deployments that authorize request-body content and exceed -open-policy-agent-max-request-body-size, which defaults to 1 MB. Policy logic that does not reject input.attributes.request.http.truncated_body can therefore fail open and permit a forbidden payload to reach the protected service, while small bodies and the previously fixed chunked-body case are evaluated normally. This issue is fixed in version 0.27.35.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/zalando/skipper | all versions | 0.27.26go get github.com/zalando/skipper@v0.27.26 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/zalando/skipper, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/zalando/skipper to 0.27.26 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-65838 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-2026-65838 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2026-65838. 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-2026-65838 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2026-65838 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.