Istio Long URI Denial of Service Vulnerability [CVE-2019-14993]
CVE number – CVE-2019-14993
A vulnerability in Istio could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on a targeted system.
The vulnerability is due to improper handling of regular expressions for long URIs during the use of the JWT, VirtualService, HTTPAPISpecBinding, or QuotaSpecBinding APIs. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a request that submits malicious input to the targeted system. A successful exploit could result in a DoS condition.
Istio has confirmed the vulnerability and released software updates.
Analysis
- To exploit could this vulnerability, the attacker must send a request that submits malicious input to the targeted system, making exploitation more difficult in environments that restrict network access from untrusted sources.
Safeguards
- Administrators are advised to apply the appropriate updates.
Administrators are advised to allow only trusted users to have network access.
Administrators are advised to run both firewall and antivirus applications to minimize the potential of inbound and outbound threats.
Administrators may consider using IP-based access control lists (ACLs) to allow only trusted systems to access the affected systems.
Administrators can help protect affected systems from external attacks by using a solid firewall strategy.
Administrators are advised to monitor affected systems.
Vendor Announcements
- Istio has released a security advisory at the following link: ISTIO-SECURITY-2019-003
Fixed Software
Duncan is a technology professional with over 20 years experience of working in various IT roles. He has a interest in cyber security, and has a wide range of other skills in radio, electronics and telecommunications.