CVE-2026-88021: Consul vulnerable to an authorization bypass in the Connect service mesh
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.
Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:N · CWE-185
Tracked companies
Mapped from the CVE’s affected-product data, NVD CPE matches, vendor advisories or package feeds. A mapping means the vendor’s software is named, not that its hosted service was exposed.
Status incidents that name it
No tracked status incident names this CVE.
Affected vendors and products
HashiCorp: ConsulHashiCorp: Consul Enterprise
References
- CVE record on cve.org (opens in new tab)
- NVD entry (opens in new tab)
- discuss.hashicorp.com/t/hcsec-2026-37-consul-vulnerable-to-an-authorization-bypass-in-the-c… (opens in new tab)
- CVE records from the CVE Program (cve.org). CVE® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. (opens in new tab)
- This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. (opens in new tab)
- Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog from CISA. (opens in new tab)
- EPSS scores from FIRST (Exploit Prediction Scoring System). (opens in new tab)