CVE-2022-29179

Workarounds

There are no workarounds available.

Acknowledgements

The Cilium community has worked together with members of Isovalent, Amazon and Palo Alto Networks to prepare these mitigations. Special thanks to Micah Hausler (AWS), Robert Clark (AWS), Yuval Avrahami (Palo Alto Networks), and Shaul Ben Hai (Palo Alto Networks) for their cooperation.

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

Email us at [email protected]

If an attacker is able to perform a container escape of a container running as root on a host where Cilium is installed, the attacker can leverage Cilium's Kubernetes service account to gain access to cluster privileges that are more permissive than what is minimally required to operate Cilium. In affected releases, this service account had access to modify and delete Pod and Node resources.

The application assigns, modifies, tracks, or checks privileges incorrectly, allowing a user to gain elevated access. Typical impact: privilege escalation beyond the intended level.

CVE-2022-29179 has a CVSS score of 7.5 (High). The vector is requires local access, high privileges required, and no user interaction. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. A fixed version is available (1.11.5, 1.10.11, 1.9.16); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.

Kodem intelligence

The problem has been fixed and is available on versions >=1.9.16, >=1.10.11, >=1.11.5

1. What is CVE-2022-29179? CVE-2022-29179 is a high-severity improper privilege management vulnerability in github.com/cilium/cilium (go), affecting versions >= 1.11.0, < 1.11.5. It is fixed in 1.11.5, 1.10.11, 1.9.16. The application assigns, modifies, tracks, or checks privileges incorrectly, allowing a user to gain elevated access.
2. How severe is CVE-2022-29179? CVE-2022-29179 has a CVSS score of 7.5 (High). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
3. Which versions of github.com/cilium/cilium are affected by CVE-2022-29179? github.com/cilium/cilium (go) versions >= 1.11.0, < 1.11.5 is affected.
4. Is there a fix for CVE-2022-29179? Yes. CVE-2022-29179 is fixed in 1.11.5, 1.10.11, 1.9.16. Upgrade to this version or later.
5. Is CVE-2022-29179 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2022-29179 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
6. What actually determines whether CVE-2022-29179 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
7. How do I fix CVE-2022-29179?
   • Upgrade github.com/cilium/cilium to 1.11.5 or later
   • Upgrade github.com/cilium/cilium to 1.10.11 or later
   • Upgrade github.com/cilium/cilium to 1.9.16 or later