What is CVE-2022-21701?

CVE-2022-21701 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Istio, classified under Incorrect Authorization. CVSS score: 5.0/10. Published 2022-01-19.

How severe is CVE-2022-21701?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.0 out of 10.

Is CVE-2022-21701 known to be exploited?

2 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Auth bypass in Istio

CVE-2022-21701

Istio is an open platform to connect, manage, and secure microservices. In versions 1.12.0 and 1.12.1 Istio is vulnerable to a privilege escalation attack. Users who have `CREATE` permission for `gateways.gateway.networking.k8s.io` objects can escalate this privilege to create other resources that they may not have access to, such as `Pod`. This vulnerability impacts only an Alpha level feature, the Kubernetes Gateway API. This is not the same as the Istio Gateway type (gateways.networking.istio.io), which is not vulnerable. Users are advised to upgrade to resolve this issue. Users unable to upgrade should implement any of the following which will prevent this vulnerability: Remove the gateways.gateway.networking.k8s.io CustomResourceDefinition, set PILOT_ENABLE_GATEWAY_API_DEPLOYMENT_CONTROLLER=true environment variable in Istiod, or remove CREATE permissions for gateways.gateway.networking.k8s.io objects from untrusted users.

Vulnerability class: Broken Access Control

Published 2022-01-19 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.0 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.008 (53.7th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

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

Istio — versions 1.12.0, >= 1.12.0, < 1.12.2, 1.12.1

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-863 — Incorrect Authorization

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

istio.io/latest/news/releases/1.12.x/announcing-1.12.2/ (Release Notes, Mitigation, Vendor Advisory)
github.com/istio/istio/security/advisories/GHSA-mq8f-9446-c28r (Third Party Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2022-21701?: CVE-2022-21701 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Istio, classified under Incorrect Authorization. CVSS score: 5.0/10. Published 2022-01-19.
How severe is CVE-2022-21701?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.0 out of 10.
Is CVE-2022-21701 known to be exploited?: 2 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.