Improper input validation in Envoyproxy Envoy

CVE-2026-73552

Envoy is an open source edge and service proxy designed for cloud-native applications. Prior to 1.36.10, 1.37.6, 1.38.4, and 1.39.1, Envoy HTTP RBAC accepts RFC-valid opaque header bytes but evaluates safe_regex values with RE2's UTF-8 subject semantics. A downstream client can preserve a prohibited marker and add an unrelated obs-text octet, causing RE2::FullMatch to return false and a negative RBAC policy to treat the invalid subject as an ordinary no-match. A byte-oriented route matcher can still observe the marker, allowing the request to reach a route intended to be denied. The relevant scope boundary is that plain positive ALLOW regexes normally fail closed, and exact, prefix, suffix, and contains matchers are not shown to have this subject-domain failure. This issue is fixed in versions 1.36.10, 1.37.6, 1.38.4, and 1.39.1.

Vulnerability class: Drupalgeddon 2 (CVE-2018-7600)

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.5 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.005 (42.2th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 42nd percentile — 42.2% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-73552: held from 0.005 to 0.005.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.005 · newest: 0.005 · change: +0.000

Affected products

  • Envoyproxy Envoy — versions < 1.36.10, >= 1.37.0, < 1.37.6, >= 1.38.0, < 1.38.4

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-73552?
CVE-2026-73552 is a high-severity vulnerability in Envoyproxy Envoy, classified under Improper Input Validation. CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2026-09-21.
How severe is CVE-2026-73552?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.