---
id: CVE-2026-88021
title: Consul vulnerable to an authorization bypass in the Connect service mesh
summary: >-
  Consul and Consul Enterprise are vulnerable to an authorization bypass in the
  Connect service mesh that may allow a service to reach a destination it is not
  authorized to access. When building Envoy RBAC rules to enforce Connect
  intentio…
severity: high
cvss: 7.5
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:N'
cvssSource: cna
cwe:
  - CWE-185
vendor: HashiCorp
product: Consul
affected:
  - Consul >= 1.9.0 < 2.0.4
  - consul_enterprise >= 1.9.0 < 2.0.4
ssvc:
  exploitation: none
  automatable: 'no'
  technicalImpact: partial
  timestamp: '2026-09-10T19:21:28.142705Z'
published: '2026-09-10'
updated: '2026-09-10'
sourceUpdated: '2026-09-10T19:21:46.156Z'
source: CVEORG
sourceUrl: 'https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-88021'
references:
  - url: >-
      https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/hcsec-2026-37-consul-vulnerable-to-an-authorization-bypass-in-the-connect-service-mesh/77739
tags:
  - cve.org
epss: 0.00335
epssPercentile: 0.24356
ingestedAt: '2026-09-11T16:45:48.024Z'
---

## Overview

Consul and Consul Enterprise are vulnerable to an authorization bypass in the Connect service mesh that may allow a service to reach a destination it is not authorized to access. When building Envoy RBAC rules to enforce Connect intentions, Consul did not correctly escape certain characters in service names, namespaces, and partitions, causing the generated authorization rules to match more broadly than intended. This vulnerability (CVE-2026-88021) is fixed in Consul 2.0.4 and Consul Enterprise 1.21.18, 1.22.12 and 2.0.4.

## Affected

- `Consul >= 1.9.0 < 2.0.4`
- `consul_enterprise >= 1.9.0 < 2.0.4`

## Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.