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Security advisory

Type: advisorySources: OSVCVE: CVE-2021-39155

Istio is an open source platform for providing a uniform way to integrate microservices, manage traffic flow across microservices, enforce policies and aggregate telemetry data. According to [RFC 4343](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4343), Istio authorization policy should compare the hostname in the HTTP Host header in a case insensitive way, but currently the comparison is case sensitive. The proxy will route the request hostname in a case-insensitive way which means the authorization policy could be bypassed. As an example, the user may have an authorization policy that rejects request with hostname "httpbin.foo" for some source IPs, but the attacker can bypass this by sending the request with hostname "Httpbin.Foo". Patches are available in Istio 1.11.1, Istio 1.10.4 and Istio 1.9.8. As a work around a Lua filter may be written to normalize Host header before the authorization check. This is similar to the Path normalization presented in the [Security Best Practices](https://istio.io/latest/docs/ops/best-practices/security/#case-normalization) guide.

Products
Not specified
Affected versions
Not specified
Fixed versions
Not specified
CVEs
CVE-2021-39155
Confirmed fixed CVEs
Not specified
Updated in this feed
31 Oct 2026, 11:52 UTC · Revision 1

Source evidence

CVE-2021-39155

core-osv · Original source

Published 24 Aug 2021, 23:15 UTC

Istio is an open source platform for providing a uniform way to integrate microservices, manage traffic flow across microservices, enforce policies and aggregate telemetry data. According to [RFC 4343](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4343), Istio authorization policy should compare the hostname in the HTTP Host header in a case insensitive way, but currently the comparison is case sensitive. The proxy will route the request hostname in a case-insensitive way which means the authorization policy could be bypassed. As an example, the user may have an authorization policy that rejects request with hostname "httpbin.foo" for some source IPs, but the attacker can bypass this by sending the request with hostname "Httpbin.Foo". Patches are available in Istio 1.11.1, Istio 1.10.4 and Istio 1.9.8. As a work around a Lua filter may be written to normalize Host header before the authorization check. This is similar to the Path normalization presented in the [Security Best Practices](https://istio.io/latest/docs/ops/best-practices/security/#case-normalization) guide.

osv:CVE-2021-39155
Complete source record
{
  "id": "ca5a48a5642ef2911920c4b70ace542965bbcaacc3f96d5833de2965ca8547c1",
  "url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2021-39155",
  "method": "structured",
  "payload": {
    "kind": "advisory",
    "title": "CVE-2021-39155",
    "summary": "Istio is an open source platform for providing a uniform way to integrate microservices, manage traffic flow across microservices, enforce policies and aggregate telemetry data. According to [RFC 4343](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4343), Istio authorization policy should compare the hostname in the HTTP Host header in a case insensitive way, but currently the comparison is case sensitive. The proxy will route the request hostname in a case-insensitive way which means the authorization policy could be bypassed. As an example, the user may have an authorization policy that rejects request with hostname \"httpbin.foo\" for some source IPs, but the attacker can bypass this by sending the request with hostname \"Httpbin.Foo\". Patches are available in Istio 1.11.1, Istio 1.10.4 and Istio 1.9.8. As a work around a Lua filter may be written to normalize Host header before the authorization check. This is similar to the Path normalization presented in the [Security Best Practices](https://istio.io/latest/docs/ops/best-practices/security/#case-normalization) guide.",
    "evidence": "osv:CVE-2021-39155",
    "products": [],
    "severity": "high",
    "structured": {
      "id": "CVE-2021-39155",
      "aliases": [
        "CVE-2021-39155",
        "GHSA-7774-7vr3-cc8j"
      ],
      "metrics": [
        {
          "type": "CVSS_V3",
          "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N"
        }
      ],
      "affected": [
        {
          "ranges": [
            {
              "repo": "https://github.com/istio/istio",
              "type": "GIT",
              "events": [
                {
                  "introduced": "0"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "5336ff0f12bc093b728dac3a729b4b2bcbc3df65"
                },
                {
                  "introduced": "d26cba7e341587453ffeb978f5cf6fbc32f346f8"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "830ecc99fd2d8acb2cb0cd9f6b60fe41e3c5450a"
                },
                {
                  "introduced": "57d639a4fd19ee8c3559b9a4032f91e4d23c6f14"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "ce6205d503e5c5e41af496ebbe01ece7dc6c3547"
                }
              ],
              "database_specific": {
                "extracted_events": [
                  {
                    "cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:istio:istio:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "introduced": "0"
                      },
                      {
                        "fixed": "1.9.8"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "CPE_RANGE"
                  },
                  {
                    "cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:istio:istio:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "introduced": "1.10.0"
                      },
                      {
                        "fixed": "1.10.4"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "CPE_RANGE"
                  },
                  {
                    "cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:istio:istio:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "introduced": "1.11.0"
                      },
                      {
                        "fixed": "1.11.1"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "CPE_RANGE"
                  }
                ]
              }
            }
          ],
          "versions": [
            "1.11.0-rc.4",
            "1.11.0-rc.3",
            "1.11.0-rc.2",
            "1.11.0-rc.1",
            "1.11.0-beta.3",
            "1.11.0-beta.2",
            "1.11.0-beta.1",
            "1.9.7",
            "1.11.0-beta.0",
            "1.10.3",
            "1.10.1",
            "1.10.0",
            "1.9.4",
            "1.9.2",
            "1.9.1",
            "1.9.0",
            "1.9.0-rc.0",
            "1.9.0-beta.1",
            "1.9.0-beta.0",
            "1.7.0-alpha.0",
            "1.6.0-alpha.2",
            "1.6.0-alpha.1",
            "1.6.0-alpha.0",
            "1.5.0-beta.2",
            "1.5.0-beta.1",
            "1.5.0-alpha.0",
            "1.2.0-rc.3",
            "1.2.0-rc.0",
            "1.1.0-snapshot.2",
            "1.1.0.snapshot.1",
            "1.1.0.snapshot.0",
            "1.0.0-snapshot.0",
            "0.6.0",
            "0.5.0",
            "0.3.0"
          ],
          "database_specific": {
            "source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2021-39155.json"
          }
        }
      ],
      "modified": "2026-10-20T10:54:52.957249450Z",
      "provider": "osv",
      "references": [
        "https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4343",
        "https://github.com/istio/istio/security/advisories/GHSA-7774-7vr3-cc8j"
      ],
      "provider_metadata": {}
    },
    "related_cves": [
      {
        "value": "CVE-2021-39155",
        "evidence": "/id"
      }
    ],
    "security_relevant": true,
    "severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
  },
  "source_id": "core-osv",
  "document_id": 386359,
  "published_at": "2021-08-24T23:15:07.093+00:00"
}