GHSA-pwqm-x5x6-5586 is a high-severity (CVSS 8) CWE-326 vulnerability in github.com/cilium/cilium. A fix is available for github.com/cilium/cilium — see the affected versions and patch details below.
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-pwqm-x5x6-5586.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
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 of IPsec transparent encryption in Cilium may be vulnerable to cryptographic attacks that render the transparent encryption ineffective.
In particular, Cilium is vulnerable to the following attacks by a man-in-the-middle attacker:
- Chosen plaintext attacks
- Key recovery attacks
- Replay attacks
These attacks are possible due to an ESP sequence number collision when multiple nodes are configured with the same key. Fixed versions of Cilium use unique keys for each IPsec tunnel established between nodes, resolving all of the above attacks.
Important: After upgrading, users must perform a key rotation using the instructions here to ensure that they are no longer vulnerable to this issue. Please note that the key rotation instructions have recently been updated, and users must use the new instructions to properly establish secure IPsec tunnels. To validate that the new instructions have been followed properly, ensure that the IPsec Kubernetes secret contains a "+" sign.
Patches
All prior versions of Cilium that support IPsec transparent encryption (Cilium 1.4 onwards) are affected by this issue.
Patched versions:
- Cilium 1.15.3
- Cilium 1.14.9
- Cilium 1.13.14
Workarounds
There is no workaround to this issue. IPsec transparent encryption users are strongly encouraged to upgrade.
Acknowledgements
The Cilium community has worked together with members of Cure53 and Isovalent to prepare these mitigations. Special thanks to @NikAleksandrov and @pchaigno for their work on remediating the issue. Thanks to Marsh Ray, Senior Software Developer at Microsoft, for input and guidance on the fix.
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, please reach out on Slack.
As usual, if you think you found a related vulnerability, we strongly encourage you to report security vulnerabilities to our private security mailing list: [email protected] - first, before disclosing them in any public forums. This is a private mailing list where only members of the Cilium internal security team are subscribed to, and is treated as top priority.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/cilium/cilium | ≥ 1.4.0&&< 1.13.14 | 1.13.14go get github.com/cilium/cilium@v1.13.14 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/cilium/cilium | ≥ 1.14.0&&< 1.14.9 | 1.14.9go get github.com/cilium/cilium@v1.14.9 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/cilium/cilium | ≥ 1.15.0&&< 1.15.3 | 1.15.3go get github.com/cilium/cilium@v1.15.3 |
Affected Products
ciliumciliumDetection & 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 1.13.14 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-pwqm-x5x6-5586 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-pwqm-x5x6-5586 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.