Auth bypass in Cilium
CVE-2026-33726
Cilium is a networking, observability, and security solution with an eBPF-based dataplane. Prior to versions 1.17.14, 1.18.8, and 1.19.2, Ingress Network Policies are not enforced for traffic from pods to L7 Services (Envoy, GAMMA) with a local backend on the same node, when Per-Endpoint Routing is enabled and BPF Host Routing is disabled. Per-Endpoint Routing is disabled by default, but is automatically enabled in deployments using cloud IPAM, including Cilium ENI on EKS (`eni.enabled`), AlibabaCloud ENI (`alibabacloud.enabled`), Azure IPAM (`azure.enabled`, but not AKS BYOCNI), and some GKE deployments (`gke.enabled`; managed offerings such as GKE Dataplane V2 may use different defaults). It is typically not enabled in tunneled deployments, and chaining deployments are not affected. In practice, Amazon EKS with Cilium ENI mode is likely the most common affected environment. Versions 1.17.14, 1.18.8, and 1.19.2 contain a patch. There is currently no officially verified or comprehensive workaround for this issue. The only option would be to disable per-endpoint routes, but this will likely cause disruptions to ongoing connections, and potential conflicts if running in cloud providers.
EPSS: 0.002 (15.7th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.
CVSS v3 metric
CVSS v3 base score 5.4 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N.
Affected products
- Cilium — versions < 1.17.14, >= 1.18.0, < 1.18.8, >= 1.19.0, < 1.19.2
Weakness classification (CWE)
References
- security-advisories@github.com (x_refsource_CONFIRM, Patch, Vendor Advisory)
- security-advisories@github.com (Patch, x_refsource_MISC, Issue Tracking)
- security-advisories@github.com (Technical Description, x_refsource_MISC)
- security-advisories@github.com (Technical Description, x_refsource_MISC)
- security-advisories@github.com (Technical Description, x_refsource_MISC)
- security-advisories@github.com (Technical Description, x_refsource_MISC)
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2026-33726?
- CVE-2026-33726 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Cilium, classified under Improper Access Control. CVSS score: 5.4/10. Published 2026-03-27.
- How severe is CVE-2026-33726?
- Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.4 out of 10.