CVE-2021-32778: Excessive CPU utilization when closing HTTP/2 streams

Published Aug 24, 2021
·
Updated

Envoy is an open source L7 proxy and communication bus designed for large modern service oriented architectures. In affected versions envoy’s procedure for resetting a HTTP/2 stream has O(N^2) complexity, leading to high CPU utilization when a large number of streams are reset. Deployments are susceptible to Denial of Service when Envoy is configured with high limit on H/2 concurrent streams. An attacker wishing to exploit this vulnerability would require a client opening and closing a large number of H/2 streams. Envoy versions 1.19.1, 1.18.4, 1.17.4, 1.16.5 contain fixes to reduce time complexity of resetting HTTP/2 streams. As a workaround users may limit the number of simultaneous HTTP/2 dreams for upstream and downstream peers to a low number, i.e. 100.

Affected Software

4 affected components
Envoyproxy Envoy>=1.16.0<1.16.5
Envoyproxy Envoy>=1.17.0<1.17.4
Envoyproxy Envoy>=1.18.0<1.18.4
Envoyproxy Envoy=1.19.0

Event History

Aug 24, 2021
CVE Published
via MITRE·08:30 PM
Data Sourced
via MITRE·08:30 PM
DescriptionSeverityWeakness

Frequently Asked Questions

1

What is CVE-2021-32778?

CVE-2021-32778 is a vulnerability in Envoy that has high severity and can lead to high CPU utilization when a large number of HTTP/2 streams are reset.

2

How does the vulnerability in CVE-2021-32778 affect Envoy?

The vulnerability in CVE-2021-32778 affects Envoy versions 1.16.0 through 1.16.5, 1.17.0 through 1.17.4, 1.18.0 through 1.18.4, and 1.19.0.

3

What is the severity level of CVE-2021-32778?

CVE-2021-32778 has a severity rating of high.

4

How can I mitigate the vulnerability in CVE-2021-32778?

To mitigate the vulnerability in CVE-2021-32778, it is recommended to upgrade Envoy to version 1.19.0 or apply the necessary patches provided by Envoyproxy.

5

Where can I find more information about CVE-2021-32778?

You can find more information about CVE-2021-32778 on the Envoy proxy GitHub page and the official Envoy documentation.

Contact

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