Vulnerability Monitor

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CVE-2020-8843

An issue was discovered in Istio 1.3 through 1.3.6. Under certain circumstances, it is possible to bypass a specifically configured Mixer policy. Istio-proxy accepts the x-istio-attributes header at ingress that can be used to affect policy decisions when Mixer policy selectively applies to a source equal to ingress. To exploit this vulnerability, someone has to encode a source.uid in this header. This feature is disabled by default in Istio 1.3 and 1.4.

Security Impact Summary

This vulnerability carries a HIGH severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 7.4, indicating it can be exploited remotely over the network but requires specific conditions to be met without requiring user interaction and does not require pre-existing privileges . The vulnerability impacts confidentiality (data exposure), integrity (unauthorized modifications), for affected systems. Impacting 1 product from istio organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

Reported in 2020, this vulnerability emerged during an era marked by increased sophistication in supply chain attacks, cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) security challenges. Security practices during this period emphasized zero-trust architectures, container security, and API protection.

Published

2020-02-14T19:15:10.683

Last Modified

2024-11-21T05:39:33.013

Status

Modified

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv3.1: 7.4 (HIGH)

CVSSv2 Vector

AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:N

Access Vector: NETWORK
Access Complexity: MEDIUM
Authentication: NONE
Confidentiality Impact: PARTIAL
Integrity Impact: PARTIAL
Availability Impact: NONE

Exploitability Score

8.6

Impact Score

4.9

Weaknesses

Type: Primary
CWE-20

Affected Vendors & Products

Type	Vendor	Product	Version/Range	Vulnerable?
Application	istio	istio	≤ 1.3.6	Yes

References

https://github.com/istio/istio/commits/master Patch ([email protected])
https://istio.io/news/security/ Vendor Advisory ([email protected])
https://istio.io/news/security/istio-security-2020-002/ Vendor Advisory ([email protected])
https://github.com/istio/istio/commits/master Patch (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://istio.io/news/security/ Vendor Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://istio.io/news/security/istio-security-2020-002/ Vendor Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)

How SecUtils Interprets This CVE

SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For istio's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.