GHSA-xwx5-5c9g-x68x — istio
MEDIUMGHSA-xwx5-5c9g-x68x is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.9) Out-of-bounds Read vulnerability in istio.io/istio. A fix is available for istio.io/istio — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Ill-formed headers may lead to unexpected behavior in Istio
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-xwx5-5c9g-x68x.
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-xwx5-5c9g-x68x 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 379,145 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/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
Impact
Ill-formed headers sent to Envoy in certain configurations can lead to unexpected memory access resulting in undefined behavior or crashing.
You are at most risk if you have an Istio ingress Gateway exposed to external traffic.
Patches
1.12.8, 1.13.5, 1.14.1
Workarounds
No.
References
More details can be found in the Istio Security Bulletin
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, please email us at [email protected]
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | istio.io/istio | all versions | 1.12.18go get istio.io/istio@v1.12.18 |
| 🐹Go | istio.io/istio | ≥ 1.13.0&&< 1.13.5 | 1.13.5go get istio.io/istio@v1.13.5 |
| 🐹Go | istio.io/istio | ≥ 1.14.0&&< 1.14.1 | 1.14.1go get istio.io/istio@v1.14.1 |
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 1.12.18 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-xwx5-5c9g-x68x is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Constrain what reaches the vulnerable code: limit the size and shape of untrusted input, isolate the affected component in a sandboxed or least-privileged process, and enable the platform's memory-safety mitigations (ASLR, stack protector, hardened allocator) so an out-of-bounds access is more likely to fail closed than to be exploitable.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like GHSA-xwx5-5c9g-x68x can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-xwx5-5c9g-x68x. 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 2.1 | servicemesh-0:2.1.3-1.el8 | RHSA-2022:5004 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-xwx5-5c9g-x68x in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-xwx5-5c9g-x68x across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.