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CiliumApplication

CVE-2026-49445

HIGH · 8.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2026-07-15
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 1.17.14 / 1.18.8 or later.
See remediation →
90/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Zero-click 5 weeks old

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 · unedited
Cilium is a networking, observability, and security solution. Prior to 1.17.14, 1.18.8, and 1.19.2, when Cilium L7 functionality is enabled, the embedded or standalone Envoy instance creates a world-accessible admin.sock on cluster nodes, allowing a local attacker to access Envoy admin endpoints, expose TLS secrets, disrupt cluster traffic, or terminate Envoy. This issue is fixed in versions 1.17.14, 1.18.8, and 1.19.2.

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 analysis · high confidence

When Cilium L7 functionality is enabled, the Envoy instance (embedded or standalone) creates the admin.sock with world-accessible permissions (0777 or similar), allowing any local user on cluster nodes to access the Envoy admin interface. This exposes sensitive TLS secrets, enables traffic disruption, and allows arbitrary Envoy process termination.

MitigationUpgrade Cilium to version 1.17.14, 1.18.8, or 1.19.2 where the admin.sock is created with restricted permissions. If upgrading is not immediately feasible, restrict node access and disable L7 functionality if not required.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

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
CiliumApplication
Affected:< 1.17.14>= 1.18.0, < 1.18.8>= 1.19.0, < 1.19.2

CVSS 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
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

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

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Verify if Cilium L7 proxy is enabled
    Check Cilium DaemonSet or ConfigMap for the --enable-l7-proxy flag, or look for any CiliumNetworkPolicy resources with L7 rules in your cluster
    Affected if L7 proxy is enabled and Cilium version is within the affected ranges below
  2. Check installed Cilium version
    Run 'cilium version' on any node with the Cilium agent, or check the container image tag of the cilium DaemonSet
    Affected if Version is < 1.17.14, or >= 1.18.0 and < 1.18.8, or >= 1.19.0 and < 1.19.2
  3. Inspect Envoy admin socket permissions
    Locate the Envoy admin socket (commonly in /var/run/cilium/ or the agent runtime directory) and check its permissions using 'ls -la <socket_path>'
    Affected if The socket file exists and has permissions 0777 or similar world-accessible mode
  4. Check for Envoy process socket files
    Find all socket files owned by the Envoy process using 'find /var/run -name '*.sock' -ls' and inspect their permission bits
    Affected if Any admin-related socket file shows world-readable/writable permissions

User is affected if L7 proxy is enabled AND the installed Cilium version falls within the affected ranges AND the admin.sock exists with overly permissive (0777 or equivalent) permissions.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 1.17.14 / 1.18.8 / 1.19.2 or later
Fixed in 1.17.141.18.81.19.2
Interim mitigation

Upgrade Cilium to version 1.17.14, 1.18.8, or 1.19.2 where the admin.sock is created with restricted permissions. If upgrading is not immediately feasible, restrict node access and disable L7 functionality if not required.

Recommended fix High confidence

Upgrade to Cilium 1.17.14 (if on 1.17 branch), 1.18.8 (if on 1.18 branch), or 1.19.2 (if on 1.19 branch)

  1. Identify the currently running Cilium version using 'cilium version' or 'kubectl get pods -A -o jsonpath="{.items[0].spec.containers[0].image}"'
  2. Determine which release branch you are on (1.17.x, 1.18.x, or 1.19.x) to select the appropriate fixed version
  3. For Cilium deployed via Helm, upgrade using: helm upgrade cilium cilium/cilium --version <fixed-version> -n kube-system
  4. For Cilium deployed via operator, follow the standard upgrade procedure at https://docs.cilium.io/en/stable/operations/upgrade/
  5. Verify the upgrade completed successfully by checking 'cilium status' and ensuring all pods are running
  6. Confirm the admin.sock file permissions are no longer world-accessible (should be restricted to root or specific group)
Caveat Review the Cilium upgrade notes for your respective version branch to check for any backward-incompatible changes before upgrading

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Cilium Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing6.0 h
  • Review / QA3.0 h
21.0 hours of engineering $3,680
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2026-49445 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data