Improper use of cryptographic key in wal-g

HIGH 7.5CVE-2021-38599 · GHSA-vrmr-f2qh-3hhf · Published 12/08/2021 · updated 17/06/2026

In short

CVE-2021-38599 is a HIGH (CVSS 7.5) vulnerability affecting github.com/wal-g/wal-g, wal-g (wal-g project).
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days (EPSS): 0.83%, higher than 57.9% of all vulnerabilities.
Fix: update to 1.1 or later.

Package	Affected versions	Patched versions
github.com/wal-g/wal-g Go	`< 1.1`	`1.1`
wal-g wal-g_project	`< 1.1`	`1.1`

Description

WAL-G before 1.1, when a non-libsodium build (e.g., one of the official binary releases published as GitHub Releases) is used, silently ignores the libsodium encryption key and uploads cleartext backups. This is arguably a Principle of Least Surprise violation because "the user likely wanted to encrypt all file activity."

NVD description

References

nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-38599 · ADVISORY
wal-g/wal-g#1062 · WEB
wal-g/wal-g commit cadf598 · WEB
wal-g/wal-g · PACKAGE
wal-g/wal-g release v1.1 · WEB

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