Envoy is a cloud-native, open source edge and service proxy. Prior to versions 1.30.4, 1.29.7, 1.28.5, and 1.27.7. Envoy references already freed memory when route hash policy is configured with cookie attributes. Note that this vulnerability has been fixed in the open as the effect would be immediately apparent if it was configured. Memory allocated for holding attribute values is freed after configuration was parsed. During request processing Envoy will attempt to copy content of de-allocated memory into request cookie header. This can lead to arbitrary content of Envoys memory to be sent to the upstream service or abnormal process termination. This vulnerability is fixed in Envoy versions v1.30.4, v1.29.7, v1.28.5, and v1.27.7. As a workaround, do not use cookie attributes in route action hash policy.
Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code.
The use of previously-freed memory can have any number of adverse consequences, ranging from the corruption of valid data to the execution of arbitrary code, depending on the instantiation and timing of the flaw. The simplest way data corruption may occur involves the system’s reuse of the freed memory. Use-after-free errors have two common and sometimes overlapping causes:
In this scenario, the memory in question is allocated to another pointer validly at some point after it has been freed. The original pointer to the freed memory is used again and points to somewhere within the new allocation. As the data is changed, it corrupts the validly used memory; this induces undefined behavior in the process. If the newly allocated data happens to hold a class, in C++ for example, various function pointers may be scattered within the heap data. If one of these function pointers is overwritten with an address to valid shellcode, execution of arbitrary code can be achieved.