GHSA-gj49-89wh-h4gj — cilium
HIGHGHSA-gj49-89wh-h4gj is a high-severity (CVSS 7.9) Information Exposure vulnerability in github.com/cilium/cilium. A fix is available for github.com/cilium/cilium — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Cillium exposes sensitive information included in the cilium-bugtool debug archive
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 GHSA-gj49-89wh-h4gj.
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
GHSA-gj49-89wh-h4gj 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/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
The output of cilium-bugtool can contain sensitive data when the tool is run against Cilium deployments with WireGuard encryption enabled.
Users of WireGuard Transparent Encryption are affected.
The sensitive data is the WireGuard private key (cilium_wg0.key) used for node-to-node encrypted communication
cilium-bugtool is a debugging tool that is typically invoked manually and does not run during the normal operation of a Cilium cluster. It is also invoked when gathering sysdumps using the Cilium CLI's cilium sysdump command.
Patches
This issue affects:
- Cilium v1.19 between v1.19.0 and v1.19.2 inclusive
- Cilium v1.18 between v1.18.0 and v1.18.8 inclusive
- All versions of Cilium prior to v1.17.15
This issue has been patched in:
- Cilium v1.19.3
- Cilium v1.18.9
- Cilium v1.17.15
Workarounds
There is no workaround to this issue.
Users who have previously shared bugtool or sysdump archives from WireGuard-enabled nodes should rotate the WireGuard keys on the affected nodes. This can be done by deleting the key file and restarting the Cilium agent, which will generate a new key pair.
Acknowledgements
The Cilium community has worked together with members of Isovalent to prepare these mitigations. Cillium extends special thanks to @kodareef5 for reporting the issue and @tklauser for their work on triaging and remediating this issue.
For more information
If there are any questions or comments about this advisory, please reach out on Slack.
Cilium strongly encourages the reporting of suspected vulnerabilities to the security mailing list at [email protected]. This is a private mailing list for the Cilium security team, and the report will be treated as top priority.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/cilium/cilium | all versions | 1.17.15go get github.com/cilium/cilium@v1.17.15 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/cilium/cilium | ≥ 1.18.0&&< 1.18.9 | 1.18.9go get github.com/cilium/cilium@v1.18.9 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/cilium/cilium | ≥ 1.19.0&&< 1.19.3 | 1.19.3go get github.com/cilium/cilium@v1.19.3 |
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 1.17.15 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-gj49-89wh-h4gj 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 GHSA-gj49-89wh-h4gj can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-gj49-89wh-h4gj. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-gj49-89wh-h4gj in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-gj49-89wh-h4gj across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.