Cyber Resilience

CVE-2024-42487

Cilium 1.15.0 – 1.15.8

Published
15 August 2024
Modified
30 September 2024
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 4.0
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0053 42th percentile
Risk Priority 38 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2024-42487 is a medium-severity HTTP Request/Response Splitting (CWE-113) vulnerability in Cilium Cilium. Its CVSS base score is 4.0 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Content Injection (T1659); ranked at the 42th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Cilium is a networking, observability, and security solution with an eBPF-based dataplane. In the 1.15 branch prior to 1.15.8 and the 1.16 branch prior to 1.16.1, Gateway API HTTPRoutes and GRPCRoutes do not follow the match precedence specified in the…

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Gateway API specification. In particular, request headers are matched before request methods, when the specification describes that the request methods must be respected before headers are matched. This could result in unexpected behaviour with security This issue is fixed in Cilium v1.15.8 and v1.16.1. There is no workaround for this issue.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1659 Content Injection Initial Access
Adversaries may gain access and continuously communicate with victims by injecting malicious content into systems through online network traffic.
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.
T1557 Adversary-in-the-Middle Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to position themselves between two or more networked devices using an adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) technique to support follow-on behaviors such as [Network Sniffing](https://attack.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-41333Same product: Cilium Cilium
CVE-2024-28860Same product: Cilium Cilium
CVE-2026-56742Same product: Cilium Cilium
CVE-2025-30163Same product: Cilium Cilium
CVE-2025-30162Same product: Cilium Cilium
CVE-2026-56743Same product: Cilium Cilium
CVE-2026-26963Same product: Cilium Cilium
CVE-2024-28250Same product: Cilium Cilium
CVE-2024-25631Same product: Cilium Cilium
CVE-2024-28249Same product: Cilium Cilium

Affected Assets

cilium
cilium
1.16.0 · 1.15.0 — 1.15.8

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V3.4.2
  • V4.1.3
  • V1.3.6
  • V4.2.3

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation can discover cases where two products interpret the same inputs or state transitions differently.

Input validation stops unneutralized CR/LF characters from being accepted and later emitted in HTTP headers.

Output filtering can neutralize CRLF sequences before they reach HTTP response headers.

Applying security engineering principles during design can require unambiguous protocol and data-format specifications that eliminate divergent interpretations between products.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly require input sanitization and header handling that prevent CRLF injection.

DE.AE-03 partial match
prevents

Correlating logs from multiple products can surface discrepancies caused by interpretation conflicts.

DE.CM-09 partial match
prevents

Runtime monitoring of software behavior can detect adverse outcomes stemming from differing interpretations.

GV.SC-07 partial match
prevents

Supplier risk assessments can identify products whose differing interpretations create systemic exposure.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

finds

Security testing in development and acceptance can detect CRLF injection flaws before deployment.

prevents

Secure development lifecycle mandates input validation and output encoding that directly prevents CRLF injection into HTTP headers.

prevents

Application security requirements explicitly call for controls against injection flaws including HTTP header manipulation.

prevents

Secure architecture principles reduce the likelihood of header-splitting vulnerabilities through proper component isolation.

prevents

Secure coding standards require neutralization of CRLF sequences before inclusion in HTTP headers.

A.8.15 Logging none match
none

Logging of HTTP traffic can record header-splitting attempts, aiding detection and forensics.

References