Consul vulnerable to an authorization bypass in the Connect service mesh
Summary
| CVE | CVE-2026-88021 |
|---|---|
| State | PUBLISHED |
| Assigner | HashiCorp |
| Source Priority | CVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback |
| Published | 2026-09-10 19:17:39 UTC |
| Updated | 2026-09-10 20:17:31 UTC |
| Description | Consul and Consul Enterprise are vulnerable to an authorization bypass in the Connect service mesh that may allow a service to reach a destination it is not authorized to access. When building Envoy RBAC rules to enforce Connect intentions, Consul did not correctly escape certain characters in service names, namespaces, and partitions, causing the generated authorization rules to match more broadly than intended. This vulnerability (CVE-2026-88021) is fixed in Consul 2.0.4 and Consul Enterprise 1.21.18, 1.22.12 and 2.0.4. |
Risk And Classification
Primary CVSS: v3.1 7.1 HIGH from [email protected]
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:N
Problem Types: CWE-185 | CWE-185 CWE-185: Incorrect Regular Expression
| Version | Source | Type | Score | Severity | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | [email protected] | Secondary | 7.1 | HIGH | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:N |
| 3.1 | CNA | CVSS | 7.5 | HIGH | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:N |
CVSS v3.1 Breakdown
Attack Vector
NetworkAttack Complexity
LowPrivileges Required
LowUser Interaction
NoneScope
UnchangedConfidentiality
HighIntegrity
LowAvailability
NoneCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:N
Vendor Declared Affected Products
| Source | Vendor | Product | Version | Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CNA | HashiCorp | Consul | affected 1.9.0 2.0.4 semver | 64 bit, 32 bit, x86, ARM, MacOS, Windows, Linux |
| CNA | HashiCorp | Consul Enterprise | affected 1.9.0 2.0.4 semver | 64 bit, 32 bit, x86, ARM, MacOS, Windows, Linux |
References
| Reference | Source | Link | Tags |
|---|---|---|---|
| discuss.hashicorp.com/t/hcsec-2026-37-consul-vulnerable-to-an-authorization-bypass-... | [email protected] | discuss.hashicorp.com | |
| CVE Program record | CVE.ORG | www.cve.org | canonical |
| NVD vulnerability detail | NVD | nvd.nist.gov | canonical, analysis |
Vendor Comments And Credit
Discovery Credit
CNA: This issue was reported to HashiCorp by Đoàn Thành. (en)
There are currently no legacy QID mappings associated with this CVE.