GHSA-j89h-qrvr-xc36
MEDIUMUnencrypted traffic between nodes when using IPsec and L7 policies
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.
Blast Radius
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 | 1.13.13 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/cilium/cilium | ≥ 1.14.0&&< 1.14.8 | 1.14.8 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/cilium/cilium | ≥ 1.15.0&&< 1.15.2 | 1.15.2 |
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. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
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 pinpoints whether GHSA-j89h-qrvr-xc36 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
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 detects GHSA-j89h-qrvr-xc36 across Go dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.