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Envoy Gateway: Nil-dereference when SecurityPolicy targets TCPRoute without spec.authorization

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Jun 5, 2026 in envoyproxy/gateway • Updated Jul 16, 2026

Package

gomod github.com/envoyproxy/gateway (Go)

Affected versions

>= 1.8.0-rc.0, < 1.8.1
< 1.7.4

Patched versions

1.8.1
1.7.4

Description

Vulnerability report without repro case. Repro case may be added later after harness is complete.

Preconditions (4):

  • Tenant has SecurityPolicy + TCPRoute RBAC (baseline)
  • Tenant namespace permitted to attach TCPRoute to a Gateway listener
  • spec.authorization omitted (the trigger)
  • No admission webhook blocks the shape

Description:

A namespace-scoped tenant can deterministically panic the gatewayapi runner on every reconcile with a single CRD; the recover() in message/watchutil.go:53 keeps the process alive but unwinds the entire handle() callback in runner/runner.go:192, so xDS/Infra IR publishing stalls controller-wide until an admin deletes the object. Data plane keeps serving last-good config.

References

@zirain zirain published to envoyproxy/gateway Jun 5, 2026
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Jul 16, 2026
Reviewed Jul 16, 2026
Last updated Jul 16, 2026

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS score

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

This score estimates the probability of this vulnerability being exploited within the next 30 days. Data provided by FIRST.
(31st percentile)

Weaknesses

NULL Pointer Dereference

The product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL. Learn more on MITRE.

CVE ID

CVE-2026-53719

GHSA ID

GHSA-m2v6-2jmh-4c68

Source code

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