An authenticated code injection vulnerability in OpenStack Octavia allows malicious project members to execute arbitrary HAProxy directives, posing a critical risk to load balancer integrity.

This flaw stems from improper input validation in the Amphora provider driver, where control characters in redirect fields bypass structural checks and are injected into HAProxy configuration files. An authenticated user with project permissions can exploit this to achieve command injection within the load balancer environment.

Successful exploitation allows an attacker to manipulate load balancer behavior, potentially leading to unauthorized traffic redirection, service disruption, or full compromise of the load balancer instance. Given the critical CVSS score of 9.4, this vulnerability represents a severe threat to infrastructure availability and data integrity within the OpenStack environment.

Immediate Action: Update OpenStack Octavia to versions 16.1.0, 17.0.1, or 18.0.1 as appropriate for your deployment branch.

Proactive Monitoring: Review HAProxy configuration files for unexpected directives or injected newline characters and monitor load balancer logs for suspicious L7 policy updates.

Compensating Controls: Restrict access to load balancer management interfaces and enforce strict project-level policies to limit the scope of potential attackers.

Public Exploit Available: Unknown

The severity of this issue necessitates an immediate patch management cycle for all OpenStack deployments utilizing the Amphora provider. Administrators should prioritize upgrading to the specified fixed versions to eliminate the code injection vector and prevent potential unauthorized configuration changes within their load balancer infrastructure.