GHSA-qcvw-82hh-gq38 — istio
HIGHGHSA-qcvw-82hh-gq38 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-185 vulnerability in istio.io/istio. 2 public exploit references exist, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for istio.io/istio — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Istio ReDoS Vulnerability
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-qcvw-82hh-gq38 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
istio.io/istio🐹istio.io/istioReal-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
Istio before 1.1.13 and 1.2.x before 1.2.4 mishandles regular expressions for long URIs, leading to a denial of service during use of the JWT, VirtualService, HTTPAPISpecBinding, or QuotaSpecBinding API.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | istio.io/istio | all versions | 1.1.13go get istio.io/istio@v1.1.13 |
| 🐹Go | istio.io/istio | ≥ 1.2.0&&< 1.2.4 | 1.2.4go get istio.io/istio@v1.2.4 |
Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for istio.io/istio, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update istio.io/istio to 1.1.13 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-qcvw-82hh-gq38 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-qcvw-82hh-gq38 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-qcvw-82hh-gq38. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Openshift Service Mesh 1.1 | kiali-0:v1.12.7.redhat1-1.el7 | RHEA-2020:1416 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-qcvw-82hh-gq38 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-qcvw-82hh-gq38 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.