What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2024-33522: Privilege escalation in Calico CNI install binary

• Severity: medium (CVSS 6.7 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2024-04-29 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-269

Description

In vulnerable versions of Calico (v3.27.2 and below), Calico Enterprise (v3.19.0-1, v3.18.1, v3.17.3 and below), and Calico Cloud (v19.2.0 and below), an attacker who has local access to the Kubernetes node, can escalate their privileges by exploiting a vulnerability in the Calico CNI install binary. The issue arises from an incorrect SUID (Set User ID) bit configuration in the binary, combined with the ability to control the input binary, allowing an attacker to execute an arbitrary binary with elevated privileges.

Affected products

• Tigera Calico: before v3.26.5; from v3.27.0 before v3.27.3 — fixed in v3.26.5, v3.27.3
• Tigera Calico Cloud: before v19.3.0 — fixed in v19.3.0
• Tigera Calico Enterprise: before v3.17.4; from v3.18.0 before v3.18.2; from v3.19.0-1.0 before v3.19.0-2.0 — fixed in v3.17.4, v3.18.2, v3.19.0-2.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Tigera Calico v3.26.5, v3.27.3; Tigera Calico Cloud v19.3.0; Tigera Calico Enterprise v3.17.4, v3.18.2, v3.19.0-2.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://github.com/projectcalico/calico/issues/7981
• https://github.com/projectcalico/calico/pull/8447
• https://github.com/projectcalico/calico/pull/8517
• https://www.tigera.io/security-bulletins-tta-2024-001/
• https://github.com/projectcalico/calico/issues/7981
• https://github.com/projectcalico/calico/pull/8447
• https://github.com/projectcalico/calico/pull/8517
• https://www.tigera.io/security-bulletins-tta-2024-001/

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