CVE-2026-53718

Envoy Gateway is an open source project for managing Envoy Proxy as a standalone or Kubernetes-based application gateway. Prior to 1.7.4 and 1.8.1, an HTTPRoute can use an extension-managed custom backendRef to reference a backend resource in another namespace without a matching Gateway API ReferenceGrant in the target namespace. The custom-backend branch in internal/gatewayapi/route.go omits validateBackendNamespace, allowing the route-owning namespace to bind to and use the resource without the backend namespace owner's consent and violating the Gateway API cross-namespace authorization model. This issue is fixed in versions 1.7.4 and 1.8.1.

  • Published Sep 14, 2026
  • CVSS 6.4 medium
  • 0.4% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days (EPSS)
  • A fix is available

Affected software

CVE-2026-53718 at the National Vulnerability Database