Cyber Resilience

CVE-2021-32779

High

Published: 24 August 2021

Published
24 August 2021
Modified
21 November 2024
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 8.6 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0003 10.9th percentile
Risk Priority 17 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2021-32779 is a high-severity Incorrect Behavior Order: Authorization Before Parsing and Canonicalization (CWE-551) vulnerability in Envoyproxy Envoy. Its CVSS base score is 8.6 (High).

Operationally, ranked at the 10.9th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Envoy is an open source L7 proxy and communication bus designed for large modern service oriented architectures. In affected versions envoy incorrectly handled a URI '#fragment' element as part of the path element. Envoy is configured with an RBAC filter…

more

for authorization or similar mechanism with an explicit case of a final "/admin" path element, or is using a negative assertion with final path element of "/admin". The client sends request to "/app1/admin#foo". In Envoy prior to 1.18.0, or 1.18.0+ configured with path_normalization=false. Envoy treats fragment as a suffix of the query string when present, or as a suffix of the path when query string is absent, so it evaluates the final path element as "/admin#foo" and mismatches with the configured "/admin" path element. In Envoy 1.18.0+ configured with path_normalization=true. Envoy transforms this to /app1/admin%23foo and mismatches with the configured /admin prefix. The resulting URI is sent to the next server-agent with the offending "#foo" fragment which violates RFC3986 or with the nonsensical "%23foo" text appended. A specifically constructed request with URI containing '#fragment' element delivered by an untrusted client in the presence of path based request authorization resulting in escalation of Privileges when path based request authorization extensions. Envoy versions 1.19.1, 1.18.4, 1.17.4, 1.16.5 contain fixes that removes fragment from URI path in incoming requests.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.

Affected Assets

envoyproxy
envoy
1.19.0 · 1.16.0 — 1.16.5 · 1.17.0 — 1.17.4 · 1.18.0 — 1.18.4

Mitigating Controls

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

addresses: CWE-863

Periodic review and update of procedures reduces incorrect authorization implementations over time.

addresses: CWE-863

Supervision identifies cases where authorization logic incorrectly permits unauthorized actions.

addresses: CWE-863

Defining permitted attribute values and auditing modifications reduces the chance of incorrect authorization outcomes due to tampered or missing labels.

addresses: CWE-863

The authorization process and usage restrictions help prevent incorrect authorization for remote access types.

addresses: CWE-863

Establishing configuration and connection requirements helps ensure correct rather than incorrect authorization for wireless access.

addresses: CWE-863

Establishing connection authorization processes for mobile devices helps ensure authorization decisions are correctly implemented rather than incorrect.

addresses: CWE-863

Monitoring account use, notifying on changes, and reviewing accounts for compliance corrects incorrect authorization assignments.

addresses: CWE-863

Ensures authorization decisions for external system use are correctly implemented and enforced.

References