CVE-2022-21646
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedSpiceDB is a database system for managing security-critical application permissions. Any user making use of a wildcard relationship under the right hand branch of an `exclusion` or within an `intersection` operation will see `Lookup`/`LookupResources` return a resource as "accessible" if it is *not* accessible by virtue of the inclusion of the wildcard in the intersection or the right side of the exclusion. In `v1.3.0`, the wildcard is ignored entirely in lookup's dispatch, resulting in the `banned` wildcard being ignored in the exclusion. Version 1.4.0 contains a patch for this issue. As a workaround, don't make use of wildcards on the right side of intersections or within exclusions.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysisThe application accepts input without confirming it is well-formed or within expected bounds, so malformed data can push the program into states its author never anticipated. Attackers probe these gaps to trigger crashes, bypass logic, or feed tainted values into more dangerous operations downstream. Remediating it well means validating and normalising every input at the boundary against a strict allow-list — not merely filtering known-bad values.
General guidance for the improper input validation class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data= 1.3.0CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
dbcve · scoped1.4.0
- Upgrade SpiceDB from version 1.3.0 to version 1.4.0 or later to resolve the wildcard handling vulnerability in Lookup/LookupResources operations.
- After upgrading, verify that exclusion and intersection operations with wildcards now correctly enforce permissions.
- Alternatively, as a configuration workaround, avoid using wildcards on the right-hand side of exclusion operations or within intersection operations until the upgrade is completed.
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2022-21646 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2022-21646 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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