CVE-2026-33186

gRPC-Go is the Go language implementation of gRPC. Versions prior to 1.79.3 have an authorization bypass resulting from improper input validation of the HTTP/2 :path pseudo-header. The gRPC-Go server was too lenient in its routing logic, accepting requests where the :path omitted the mandatory leading slash (e.g., Service/Method instead of /Service/Method). While the server successfully routed these requests to the correct handler, authorization interceptors (including the official grpc/authz package) evaluated the raw, non-canonical path string. Consequently, "deny" rules defined using canonical paths (starting with /) failed to match the incoming request, allowing it to bypass the policy if a fallback "allow" rule was present. This affects gRPC-Go servers that use path-based authorization interceptors, such as the official RBAC implementation in google.golang.org/grpc/authz or custom interceptors relying on info.FullMethod or grpc.Method(ctx); AND that have a security policy contains specific "deny" rules for canonical paths but allows other requests by default (a fallback "allow" rule). The vulnerability is exploitable by an attacker who can send raw HTTP/2 frames with malformed :path headers directly to the gRPC server. The fix in version 1.79.3 ensures that any request with a :path that does not start with a leading slash is immediately rejected with a codes.Unimplemented error, preventing it from reaching authorization interceptors or handlers with a non-canonical path string. While upgrading is the most secure and recommended path, users can mitigate the vulnerability using one of the following methods: Use a validating interceptor (recommended mitigation); infrastructure-level normalization; and/or policy hardening.