Styra Open Policy Agent (OPA) Gatekeeper through 3.7.0 mishandles concurrency, sometimes…
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · Low · None
- Fix status
- No fix listed
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · NVD. Fix status from CNA.
Summary
Styra Open Policy Agent (OPA) Gatekeeper through 3.7.0 mishandles concurrency, sometimes resulting in incorrect access control. The data replication mechanism allows policies to access the Kubernetes cluster state. During data replication, OPA/Gatekeeper does not wait for the replication to finish before processing a request, which might cause inconsistencies between the replicated resources in OPA/Gatekeeper and the resources actually present in the cluster. Inconsistency can later be reflected in a policy bypass. NOTE: the vendor disagrees that this is a vulnerability, because Kubernetes states are only eventually consistent
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
Not available: CISA has not published SSVC decision points for this record.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | all versions | — | No fix listed | CNA |
- — Vendor— Affected all versions Fixed in — No fix listed CNA
CPE configurations NVD · 1
| CPE | Versions | Role | Vendor |
|---|---|---|---|
| cpe:2.3:a:openpolicyagent:gatekeeper:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | up to 3.7.0 | Vulnerable | open-policy-agent |
- cpe:2.3:a:openpolicyagent:gatekeeper:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions up to 3.7.0 Vulnerable ·open-policy-agent
Remediation
No fixed version listed by the sources yet.
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2021-43979
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-v8hv-78vf-x9fr
References
Sources
- CVE-2021-43979 · CVE Program
- CVE-2021-43979 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-v8hv-78vf-x9fr · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
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