GHSA-j89h-qrvr-xc36 — cilium
MEDIUMGHSA-j89h-qrvr-xc36 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.1) CWE-311 vulnerability in github.com/cilium/cilium. A fix is available for github.com/cilium/cilium — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Unencrypted traffic between nodes when using IPsec and L7 policies
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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-j89h-qrvr-xc36.
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-j89h-qrvr-xc36 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
In Cilium clusters with IPsec enabled and traffic matching Layer 7 policies:
- Traffic that should be IPsec-encrypted between a node's Envoy proxy and pods on other nodes is sent unencrypted
- Traffic that should be IPsec-encrypted between a node's DNS proxy and pods on other nodes is sent unencrypted
Note: For clusters running in native routing mode, IPsec encryption is not applied to connections which are selected by a L7 Egress Network Policy or a DNS Policy. This is a known limitation of Cilium's IPsec encryption which will continue to apply after upgrading to the latest Cilium versions described below.
Patches
This issue affects:
- Cilium v1.15 before v1.15.2
- Cilium v1.14 before v1.14.8
- Cilium v1.13 before v1.13.13
- Cilium v1.4 to v1.12 inclusive
This issue has been resolved in:
- Cilium v1.15.2
- Cilium v1.14.8
- Cilium v1.13.13
Workarounds
There is no workaround to this issue.
Acknowledgements
The Cilium community has worked together with members of Isovalent to prepare these mitigations. Special thanks to @jschwinger233, @julianwiedmann, @giorio94, and @jrajahalme for their work in triaging and resolving this issue.
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, please reach out on Slack.
If you think you have found a vulnerability in Cilium, we strongly encourage you to report it to our private security mailing list at [email protected]. This is a private mailing list that only members of the Cilium internal security team are subscribed to, and your report will be treated as top priority.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/cilium/cilium | all versions | 1.13.13go get github.com/cilium/cilium@v1.13.13 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/cilium/cilium | ≥ 1.14.0&&< 1.14.8 | 1.14.8go get github.com/cilium/cilium@v1.14.8 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/cilium/cilium | ≥ 1.15.0&&< 1.15.2 | 1.15.2go get github.com/cilium/cilium@v1.15.2 |
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 1.13.13 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-j89h-qrvr-xc36 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-j89h-qrvr-xc36 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-j89h-qrvr-xc36. 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-j89h-qrvr-xc36 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-j89h-qrvr-xc36 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.