Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-54761

Access Control in Traefik ≤ 3.6.21

Public PoCAccess Control
Published
23 June 2026
Modified
26 June 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v4 6.0
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
EPSS Score 0.0032 24th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-54761 is a medium-severity Improper Access Control (CWE-284) vulnerability in Traefik Traefik. Its CVSS base score is 6.0 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 24th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-4 (Information Flow Enforcement) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Traefik is an HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer. Prior to 3.6.21 and 3.7.5, there is a high severity vulnerability in Traefik's Kubernetes Gateway provider affecting the crossProviderNamespaces allowlist. For HTTPRoute rules that declare multiple (WRR) backendRefs, Traefik evaluates the…

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allowlist against the target backendRef.namespace instead of the route's own namespace. As a result, an HTTPRoute created in a namespace that is not allow-listed can reference a cross-provider TraefikService such as api@internal, dashboard@internal or rest@internal by pointing backendRef.namespace at an allow-listed namespace covered by a Gateway API ReferenceGrant, exposing internal Traefik services on the data plane. Exploitation requires the ability to create an accepted HTTPRoute and a matching ReferenceGrant from an allow-listed namespace; it does not require any change to Traefik static configuration, RBAC, or the deployment itself. This vulnerability is fixed in 3.6.21 and 3.7.5.

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.
Why these techniques?

Vulnerability in public-facing Traefik reverse proxy enables bypass of access controls to expose internal services.

Confidence: MEDIUM · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-54765Same product: Traefik Traefik
CVE-2026-41174Same product: Traefik Traefik
CVE-2026-28699Shared CWE-284, CWE-863
CVE-2026-61325Shared CWE-284, CWE-863
CVE-2026-40304Shared CWE-284, CWE-863
CVE-2026-60663Shared CWE-284, CWE-863
CVE-2026-15704Shared CWE-284, CWE-863
CVE-2026-63733Shared CWE-863
CVE-2025-30743Shared CWE-863
CVE-2026-4262Shared CWE-863

Affected Assets

traefik
traefik
≤ 3.6.21 · 3.7.0 — 3.7.5

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • AC-3 Access Enforcement
  • AC-4 Information Flow Enforcement
  • SC-7 Boundary Protection
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 13 hardening rules · 4 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V10.3.5

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

prevent

Directly enforces the crossProviderNamespaces allowlist policy so that HTTPRoute backendRef.namespace references cannot bypass it to reach internal TraefikServices.

prevent

Enforces information-flow rules between namespaces and providers, preventing an HTTPRoute in a non-allowlisted namespace from reaching api@internal, dashboard@internal, etc.

prevent

Applies boundary-protection controls at the Gateway API / provider interface to block unauthorized cross-namespace references to internal services.

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.AA-05 mostly match
prevents

PR.AA-05 directly enforces policy-based access management and least privilege, eliminating most improper-access-control defects, yet CWE-284 also covers implementation flaws and design gaps outside a single management control.

PR.PS-01 mostly match
prevents

Hardened baselines and deviation monitoring directly eliminate most configuration-induced access-control defects, yet CWE-284 also encompasses code-level and design flaws outside the scope of configuration management alone.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices catch most access-control defects during design/coding/testing (mostly), yet leave residual risk from runtime configuration, architecture, and operational controls (partial).

PR.AA-01 partial match
prevents

PR.AA-01 supplies managed identities/credentials that support but do not implement access-control decisions, so it only partially prevents CWE-284 in either direction.

PR.AA-03 partial match
prevents

Authentication directly blocks unauthenticated actors (partial prevention of CWE-284) but leaves authorization logic, policy enforcement, and role checks untouched, so the control neither eliminates nor fully mitigates the broader weakness.

PR.DS-01 partial match
prevents

PR.DS-01 encryption mitigates impact of failed access checks on stored data but neither implements nor constrains access-control logic itself.

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.

prevents

Defining and enforcing explicit access rights and restrictions for each entity directly stops the assignment of permissions that exceed what is required, eliminating the root condition that allows improper access control.

prevents

Formal authorization, role-based provisioning, and timely revocation of access rights directly stop the creation of accounts or permissions that exceed what the business actually needs.

prevents

By enforcing explicit rules on which identities or groups may perform read, write, delete or execute operations and by denying anonymous access to sensitive data, the control directly stops the creation of overly permissive or missing access-control checks.

prevents

Requiring one-to-one mapping of identities to entities and timely removal of unused identities directly stops attackers from leveraging stale or shared accounts to bypass access restrictions.

prevents

By explicitly transferring security roles and responsibilities when personnel change jobs or leave, the control reduces the chance that former employees retain access rights they no longer need, thereby limiting improper access control.

prevents

Physical entry controls enforce explicit authorization and authentication at every access point, directly stopping unauthorized actors from reaching information-processing assets.

References