CVE-2026-53717

Envoy Gateway: OCI layer extraction allocates make([]byte, h.Size) from untrusted tar header

MEDIUM
6.5
CVSS Score
Published: September 14, 2026 at 08:09 PM UTC
Updated: September 30, 2026 at 05:43 PM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorGateway

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Severity
MEDIUM6.5
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.7%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

Envoy Gateway is an open source project for managing Envoy Proxy as a standalone or Kubernetes-based application gateway. Prior to 1.7.4 and 1.8.1, internal/wasm/imagefetcher.go follows tenant-controlled EnvoyExtensionPolicy spec.wasm[].code.image.url values to Docker or OCI Wasm layers, and extractWasmPluginBinary uses the untrusted tar-header h.Size value to allocate memory before validating the entry name or declared size. A small PAX or GNU tar header can therefore claim a multi-terabyte entry even though the surrounding LimitReader restricts only the bytes read from the stream, and no registry allowlist prevents a permitted tenant from selecting an attacker-controlled registry that the controller can reach. The allocation is attempted for every tar entry and can cause an unrecoverable Go runtime out-of-memory failure; because the custom resource persists, reconciliation repeatedly crash-loops the shared controller and causes a single-request, non-volumetric, cluster-wide control-plane denial of service. This issue is fixed in versions 1.7.4 and 1.8.1.

Affected

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

v < 1.7.4v < 1.8.1
Affected range stops below 1.7.4, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
Affected range stops below 1.8.1, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet, and no fixed version or vendor advisory is recorded against it.

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatablePartial impact

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

CVSS

6.5MEDIUMGitHub_M
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
LOW
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusAWAITING ANALYSIS
CWE
CWE-789

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