V3: Traefik: Gateway API route identity collision allows cross-namespace backend hijacking (CVE-2026-71327)
## 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 All Traefik v3 minor lines are affected; the lines older than v3.6 are no longer maintained and will not receive a patch of their own, so users running them should upgrade to a maintained, patched release.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
AI Analysis
Technical Summary
Traefik's Kubernetes Gateway API provider constructs internal route identities by concatenating namespace, route name, Gateway identity, entry point, and rule index using hyphens. Since Kubernetes names may contain hyphens, this concatenation is not injective, causing distinct Routes to produce identical normalized keys. When two Routes with colliding keys are attached to the same Gateway, the later loaded Route silently overwrites the earlier one without collision detection. This allows a tenant with permission to create a Route in a colliding namespace/name combination to hijack traffic intended for another namespace by redirecting it to a backend they control. The vulnerability affects HTTPRoute, GRPCRoute, TCPRoute, and TLSRoute objects. Exploitation requires permission to create or modify a Route accepted by the shared Gateway but does not require access to the victim Route or namespace. Patches are available in Traefik v3.6.25 and v3.7.10; earlier v3 versions are no longer maintained and should be upgraded.
Potential Impact
An attacker with permission to create or modify a Route in a Kubernetes cluster using Traefik's Gateway API provider can hijack traffic from another namespace by exploiting route identity collisions. This results in unauthorized redirection of traffic to attacker-controlled backends, compromising confidentiality and integrity of the affected services. The vulnerability does not affect availability and does not require read or modification access to the victim's Route or namespace.
Mitigation Recommendations
A fix is available in Traefik versions 3.6.25 and 3.7.10. Users running earlier v3 versions should upgrade to these patched releases. Versions older than 3.6 are no longer maintained and will not receive patches, so upgrading to a maintained version is necessary. No other mitigations are indicated by the vendor advisory.
V3: Traefik: Gateway API route identity collision allows cross-namespace backend hijacking (CVE-2026-71327)
Description
## 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
CVSS v3.1
Score 8.2high
Affected software
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Weaknesses
AI-Powered Analysis
Machine-generated threat intelligence
Technical Analysis
Traefik's Kubernetes Gateway API provider constructs internal route identities by concatenating namespace, route name, Gateway identity, entry point, and rule index using hyphens. Since Kubernetes names may contain hyphens, this concatenation is not injective, causing distinct Routes to produce identical normalized keys. When two Routes with colliding keys are attached to the same Gateway, the later loaded Route silently overwrites the earlier one without collision detection. This allows a tenant with permission to create a Route in a colliding namespace/name combination to hijack traffic intended for another namespace by redirecting it to a backend they control. The vulnerability affects HTTPRoute, GRPCRoute, TCPRoute, and TLSRoute objects. Exploitation requires permission to create or modify a Route accepted by the shared Gateway but does not require access to the victim Route or namespace. Patches are available in Traefik v3.6.25 and v3.7.10; earlier v3 versions are no longer maintained and should be upgraded.
Potential Impact
An attacker with permission to create or modify a Route in a Kubernetes cluster using Traefik's Gateway API provider can hijack traffic from another namespace by exploiting route identity collisions. This results in unauthorized redirection of traffic to attacker-controlled backends, compromising confidentiality and integrity of the affected services. The vulnerability does not affect availability and does not require read or modification access to the victim's Route or namespace.
Mitigation Recommendations
A fix is available in Traefik versions 3.6.25 and 3.7.10. Users running earlier v3 versions should upgrade to these patched releases. Versions older than 3.6 are no longer maintained and will not receive patches, so upgrading to a maintained version is necessary. No other mitigations are indicated by the vendor advisory.
Technical Details
- Gcve Source
- db.gcve.eu
- Osv Id
- GHSA-fgjj-px3w-67xx
- Osv Schema Version
- 1.4.0
- Aliases
- ["CVE-2026-71327"]
- Ecosystems
- ["Go"]
- Database Specific Severity
- HIGH
- Cvss Version
- 3.1
Threat ID: 6a74cf65bf8831d539198f30
Added to database: 08/06/2026, 18:16:05 UTC
Last enriched: 08/06/2026, 18:19:47 UTC
Last updated: 08/06/2026, 22:56:16 UTC
Views: 3
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