CVE-2025-0752 in OpenShift Service Mesh
Summary
by MITRE • 01/28/2025
A flaw was found in OpenShift Service Mesh 2.6.3 and 2.5.6. Rate-limiter avoidance, access-control bypass, CPU and memory exhaustion, and replay attacks may be possible due to improper HTTP header sanitization in Envoy.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/24/2026
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2025-0752 represents a critical security flaw within the OpenShift Service Mesh 2.6.3 and 2.5.6 versions, specifically impacting the Envoy proxy component that serves as the core traffic management engine. This issue stems from inadequate HTTP header sanitization practices that create multiple attack vectors for malicious actors seeking to compromise the service mesh infrastructure. The flaw exists within the fundamental data processing mechanisms of the proxy, where incoming HTTP headers are not properly validated or sanitized before being processed or forwarded to backend services.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability allows attackers to exploit several distinct attack patterns through malformed or specially crafted HTTP headers. The improper sanitization creates opportunities for rate-limiter avoidance where malicious actors can bypass configured rate limiting policies by manipulating header values to evade detection systems. Additionally, the vulnerability enables access-control bypass scenarios where unauthorized users can potentially gain elevated privileges or access restricted resources through header manipulation techniques. The weakness also permits resource exhaustion attacks that can consume excessive CPU and memory resources, leading to denial-of-service conditions that impact legitimate service availability.
From an operational impact perspective, this vulnerability creates a comprehensive attack surface that can be leveraged to compromise the integrity and availability of service mesh operations. The potential for replay attacks means that attackers can capture and retransmit valid requests to exploit the system, while the CPU and memory exhaustion capabilities can be used to disrupt service availability and performance. These combined attack vectors represent a significant threat to service mesh security posture and can result in unauthorized access to sensitive data, service disruption, and potential escalation of privileges within the mesh infrastructure.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-20 and CWE-22 categories from the Common Weakness Enumeration, specifically addressing improper input validation and path traversal weaknesses in the header processing pipeline. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to multiple techniques including T1071.004 for application layer protocol and T1499.004 for resource exhaustion attacks. Organizations should immediately implement mitigations including upgrading to patched versions of OpenShift Service Mesh, implementing additional header validation rules, and deploying monitoring solutions to detect anomalous header patterns that may indicate exploitation attempts. Network segmentation and rate-limiting policies should be enhanced to prevent exploitation of the identified bypass capabilities, while regular security assessments should verify the effectiveness of implemented controls against these specific attack vectors.