Cyber Resilience

CVE-2024-42486

Medium

Published: 16 August 2024

Published
16 August 2024
Modified
03 September 2025
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 5.4 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0024 47.8th percentile
Risk Priority 11 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2024-42486 is a medium-severity Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor (CWE-200) vulnerability in Cilium Cilium. Its CVSS base score is 5.4 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 47.8th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Cilium is a networking, observability, and security solution with an eBPF-based dataplane. In versions on the 1.15.x branch prior to 1.15.8 and the 1.16.x branch prior to 1.16.1, ReferenceGrant changes are not correctly propagated in Cilium's GatewayAPI controller, which could…

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lead to Gateway resources being able to access secrets for longer than intended, or to Routes having the ability to forward traffic to backends in other namespaces for longer than intended. This issue has been patched in Cilium v1.15.8 and v1.16.1. As a workaround, any modification of a related Gateway/HTTPRoute/GRPCRoute/TCPRoute CRD (for example, adding any label to any of these resources) will trigger a reconciliation of ReferenceGrants on an affected cluster.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
T1212 Exploitation for Credential Access Credential Access
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to collect credentials.
T1552.007 Container API Credential Access
Adversaries may gather credentials via APIs within a containers environment.
Why these techniques?

Vulnerability in Cilium GatewayAPI controller enables exploitation of a public-facing application (T1190), unauthorized access to cross-namespace secrets facilitating credential collection via Container API (T1552.007), and exploitation specifically for credential access (T1212).

Affected Assets

cilium
cilium
1.16.0 · 1.15.0 — 1.15.8

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-200

Automated marking applies security attributes to system outputs, making it harder for attackers to exploit unmarked sensitive information leading to unauthorized exposure.

addresses: CWE-200

Proper attribute retention and permitted-value enforcement limits unauthorized actors from accessing sensitive information lacking correct labels.

addresses: CWE-200

Prevents unauthorized exposure of sensitive information by prohibiting untrusted external systems from processing or storing it.

addresses: CWE-200

By enforcing authorization matching prior to sharing, the control reduces the risk of exposing sensitive information to unauthorized actors.

addresses: CWE-200

Review and removal of nonpublic information from publicly accessible systems directly prevents exposure of sensitive data to unauthorized actors.

addresses: CWE-200

Data mining protection mechanisms detect and block unauthorized bulk extraction of sensitive data, directly mitigating exposure to unauthorized actors.

addresses: CWE-200

Literacy training teaches users to recognize and avoid actions that result in unauthorized exposure of sensitive information.

addresses: CWE-200

Retaining and monitoring training records confirms personnel have completed privacy and security awareness training on handling sensitive data, reducing the chance of unauthorized exposure due to lack of knowledge.

References