CVE-2022-21656 HIGH

CVE-2022-21656: X.509 subjectAltName matching bypass in Envoy

Vendor Envoyproxy
Product envoy
Weakness CWE-295
Published February 22, 2022
Last update April 23, 2025

CVSS base score

7.4/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity High
Privileges required None
User interaction None
Confidentiality High
Integrity High

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

What the vulnerability does

01Description

Envoy is an open source edge and service proxy, designed for cloud-native applications. The default_validator.cc implementation used to implement the default certificate validation routines has a "type confusion" bug when processing subjectAltNames. This processing allows, for example, an rfc822Name or uniformResourceIndicator to be authenticated as a domain name. This confusion allows for the bypassing of nameConstraints, as processed by the underlying OpenSSL/BoringSSL implementation, exposing the possibility of impersonation of arbitrary servers. As a result Envoy will trust upstream certificates that should not be trusted.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

February 22, 2022 CVE published
April 23, 2025 Record updated