CVE-2021-34824

Description

A flaw was found in istio. Any client authorized to access Istio XDS API can retrieve any cached gateway TLS certificate and private keys. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality.

Mitigation

This vulnerability can be mitigated by disabling istiod caching. This is controlled by the `PILOT_ENABLE_XDS_CACHE` environment variable being set to `false` on istiod.

Note: since this disables XDS caching, it may impact the performance of istiod.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Info alert:Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).

The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score9.18.8N/A
Attack VectorNetworkNetworkN/A
Attack ComplexityLowLowN/A
Privileges RequiredLowLowN/A
User InteractionNoneNoneN/A
ScopeChangedUnchangedN/A
ConfidentialityHighHighN/A
Integrity ImpactLowHighN/A
Availability ImpactLowHighN/A

Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:L

NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Confidentiality

Technical Impact: Read Application Data; Read Files or Directories

An attacker could bypass intended access restrictions to read sensitive data, either by reading the data directly from a data store that is not correctly restricted, or by accessing insufficiently-protected, privileged functionality to read the data.

Integrity

Technical Impact: Modify Application Data; Modify Files or Directories

An attacker could bypass intended access restrictions to modify sensitive data, either by writing the data directly to a data store that is not correctly restricted, or by accessing insufficiently-protected, privileged functionality to write the data.

Access Control

Technical Impact: Gain Privileges or Assume Identity; Bypass Protection Mechanism

An attacker could bypass intended access restrictions to gain privileges by modifying or reading critical data directly, or by accessing privileged functionality.

Confidentiality,Integrity,Availability

Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands

An attacker could use elevated privileges to execute unauthorized commands or code.

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Resource Consumption (Other)

An attacker could gain unauthorized access to resources on the system and excessively consume those resources, leading to a denial of service.

Acknowledgements

Upstream acknowledges the Istio project as the original reporter.

Frequently Asked Questions

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