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CVE-2026-22068 – Access Control Bypass via Unanchored Regex – Apache Traffic Server 9.0.x–9.2.14,…

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Summary

CVE-2026-22068 is a high-severity Regular Expression without Anchors (CWE-777) vulnerability in Apache Traffic Server (ATS), a widely deployed internet-facing reverse proxy and caching server. Improperly anchored regular expressions in ATS’s URL-mapping rules can be matched by specially crafted malicious domain names, allowing an unauthenticated remote attacker to bypass access controls and reach backend resources that should be restricted. The vulnerability carries a CVSS v3.1 score of 8.2 (High) and affects the 9.x and 10.x release branches.

Technical details

  • Root cause: Regular expression patterns used in ATS’s regex mapping rules lack proper anchoring (missing ^ start and $ end anchors). Without anchors, the regex engine performs a partial match, meaning a crafted domain name can be constructed to satisfy the match condition while embedding additional characters that divert the request to an unintended backend route.
  • Trigger conditions: An attacker sends an HTTP request with a malicious domain name crafted to partially match an unanchored regex ACL or mapping rule configured in the ATS instance. No credentials or prior access are required.
  • Attack vector: Remotely exploitable over the network (AV:N), requiring no authentication (PR:N) and no user interaction (UI:N), with low attack complexity (AC:L).
  • Impact: Successful exploitation results in a High Confidentiality impact (C:H) — an attacker can access backend resources or internal endpoints that are intended to be blocked — and Low Integrity impact (I:L). There is no Availability impact (A:N).

Affected software

  • Apache Traffic Server 9.0.x through 9.2.14 (inclusive)
  • Apache Traffic Server 10.0.x through 10.1.3 (inclusive)

Severity

CVSS v3.1 Base Score: 8.2 (High)
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:N

Mitigation and recommended actions

  • Immediate – patch: Upgrade to Apache Traffic Server 9.2.15 (for 9.x deployments) or Apache Traffic Server 10.1.4 (for 10.x deployments), which contain the official fix from the Apache Software Foundation.
  • If immediate patching is not possible: Review all regex-based mapping and ACL rules in your ATS configuration (remap.config, ACL rules) and manually add ^ and $ anchors to every regular expression to enforce strict boundary matching. Restrict network-level access to the ATS management interface and backend routes via firewall rules or upstream network controls as a compensating measure.

IONIX Status

The IONIX research team is tracking ongoing exploitation attempts and recommends immediate patching. Potentially affected assets are outlined in this post.

References

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