CVE-2022-21656

X.509 subjectAltName matching bypass in Envoy

MEDIUM
5.9
CVSS Score
Published: February 22, 2022 at 10:25 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 04:26 AM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorEnvoy

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Severity
MEDIUM5.9
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.7%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

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.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v < 1.20.2
Affected range stops below 1.20.2, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatableTotal impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
HIGH
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
HIGH
Availability
NONE
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-295CWE-843

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