What is CVE-2021-20278?

CVE-2021-20278 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Kiali, classified under Authentication Bypass by Spoofing. CVSS score: 6.5/10. Published 2021-05-28.

How severe is CVE-2021-20278?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.5 out of 10.

Auth bypass in Kiali

CVE-2021-20278

An authentication bypass vulnerability was found in Kiali in versions before 1.31.0 when the authentication strategy `OpenID` is used. When RBAC is enabled, Kiali assumes that some of the token validation is handled by the underlying cluster. When OpenID `implicit flow` is used with RBAC turned off, this token validation doesn't occur, and this allows a malicious user to bypass the authentication.

Published 2021-05-28 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 6.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.008 (53.7th percentile), scored 2026-10-01.

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 54th percentile — 53.7% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.008 · newest: 0.008 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Kiali
Kiali — versions kiali 1.31.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi (Patch, Third Party Advisory, Issue Tracking)
kiali.io/news/security-bulletins/kiali-security-002/ (Vendor Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2021-20278?: CVE-2021-20278 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Kiali, classified under Authentication Bypass by Spoofing. CVSS score: 6.5/10. Published 2021-05-28.
How severe is CVE-2021-20278?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.5 out of 10.