Envoy AI Gateway was found to be affected by a protocol parser differential vulnerability due to improper implementation of the JSON-RPC 2.0 specification. Such differential causes a MCP message alteration, potentially causing a bypass of security controls in a multi-layered architecture.
According to the JSON RPC Spec used by Model Context Protocol, JSON RPC should be case sensitive https://www.jsonrpc.org/specification
[...]
All member names exchanged between the Client and the Server that are considered for matching of any kind should be considered to be case-sensitive. The terms function, method, and procedure can be assumed to be interchangeable.
The AI Gateway is accepting and processing case-variant fields that compliant MCP implementations correctly ignore. Crucially, Envoy does not just "pass through" the message by acting as a transparent proxy,it alterates the traffic, allowing smuggling of unwanted requests.
The following steps represent the incoming message alteration:
- Incoming MCP Message:
{
id: 1,
jsonrpc: "2.0",
method: "tools/call",
params: {
name: "backend__greet",
Name: "backend__secretTool",
arguments: {
name: "World!"
},
Arguments: {
name: "Exploit"
}
}
}
- Parses the request, picking the non-standard
Name field over the authorized name field due to internal case-insentitive parsing by libraries such as modelcontextprotocol/go-sdk/jsonrpc and github.com/bytedance/sonic
- Overwrites the authorized "backend__greet" value from the valid
name field with the malicious value from the Name field
- Normalizes the injected "backend__secretTool" value (from the invalid
Name field)
- Re-serializes the request into a new, valid MCP JRPC payload (
{"name": "backend__secretTool"}) and forwards it upstream
This "smuggling" effect means Envoy actively transforms a request that might have been checked by any prior MCP-compliant implementation into a request that is valid and altered (from the perspective of the upstream backend), effectively introducing protocol modifications that may allow bypassing any prior authorization layer.
Root Cause Analysis
The root cause is a parser differential combined with serialization quirk typical of Go-based JSON parsers:
- Case-Insensitive Unmarshaling - When parsing a JSON key into a struct field, Go's
json.Unmarshal looks for an a case-insensitive match. Go matches "Name" to the struct tag json:"name". If "name": "safe" is also present, the last key processed wins, allowing an attacker to inject a different tool name when the MCP message reaches the Go-SDK parsing
- Strict Struct-Tag Marshaling - When converting a struct back to JSON, Go always uses the exact key specified in the Struct
json:"..." tag. Consequently, an overwritten value from a cased field could be stored in a proper lowercased parameter, later processed by a spec-compliant MCP message receiver
The vulnerability involves the usage of the jsonrpc module of github.com/modelcontextprotocol/go-sdk, which is not following the MCP mandated JSON RPC spec for messages parsing, using case insensitive matching.
The non-compliant parsing primitive is jsonrpc.DecodeMessage, it is widely used to parse the incoming MCP messages.
See at:
ai-gateway/internal/mcpproxy/handlers.go:242,739ai-gateway/internal/mcpproxy/mcpproxy.go:303ai-gateway/internal/mcpproxy/session.go:409ai-gateway/internal/mcpproxy/sse.go:88
Consequently, internals relying on objects parsed with the cited primitive are using case-insentive parsing, also subject to Unicode to ASCII Folding.
Furthermore, the internal logic is also relying on the internal/json package, acting as a wrapper around github.com/bytedance/sonic (Sonic), a high-performance JSON library that defaults to loose, case-insensitive unmarshalling.
File: internal/json/json.go
import (
sonicjson "github.com/bytedance/sonic"
)
var (
Unmarshal = sonicjson.ConfigDefault.Unmarshal
Marshal = sonicjson.ConfigDefault.Marshal
)In combination with the above mentioned spec departure, the message MCP message reconstruction logic is causing an alteration of the protocol calls passing through the gateway.
Example Vulnerable Data Flow - tools/call
The alteration occurs in ai-gateway/internal/mcpproxy/handlers.go:180 during the processing of a function servePOST.
As an example, we can focus on the processing of incoming MCP tools/call requests.
When the gateway receives a JSON-RPC request, it executes servePOST function, which then calls jsonrpc.DecodeMessage to parse the body of the bytes read from the request.
See at ai-gateway/internal/mcpproxy/handlers.go:235-242
...
body, err := io.ReadAll(r.Body)
if err != nil {
errType = metrics.MCPErrorInternal
onErrorResponse(w, http.StatusBadRequest, err.Error())
return
}
rawMsg, err := jsonrpc.DecodeMessage(body)
...If the request method is tools/call, the following code is executed at ai-gateway/internal/mcpproxy/handlers.go:366
case "tools/call":
params = &mcp.CallToolParams{}
span, err = parseParamsAndMaybeStartSpan(ctx, m, msg, params, r.Header)
if err != nil {
errType = metrics.MCPErrorInvalidParam
m.l.Error("Failed to unmarshal params", slog.String("method", msg.Method), slog.String("error", err.Error()))
onErrorResponse(w, http.StatusBadRequest, "invalid params")
return
}
err = m.handleToolCallRequest(ctx, s, w, msg, params.(*mcp.CallToolParams), span, r)At this point, the params object is a mcp.CallToolParams struct incorrectly parsed by Anthropic's jsonrpc.DecodeMessage as case insentitive object. The params object is then passed to handleToolCallRequest function, which will execute the tool call.
See at definition of handleToolCallRequest at ai-gateway/internal/mcpproxy/handlers.go:638
func (m *mcpRequestContext) handleToolCallRequest(ctx context.Context, s *session, w http.ResponseWriter, req *jsonrpc.Request, p *mcp.CallToolParams, span tracingapi.MCPSpan, r *http.Request) error {
// ... REDACTED CODE TO Enforce authentication and authorizationif required by the route ...
// Send the request to the MCP backend listener.
p.Name = toolName
param, _ := json.Marshal(p)
if m.l.Enabled(ctx, slog.LevelDebug) {
logger := m.l.With(slog.String("tool", p.Name), slog.Any("session", cse))
logger.Debug("Routing to backend")
}
if span != nil {
span.RecordRouteToBackend(backend.Name, string(cse.sessionID), false)
}
req.Params = param
return m.invokeAndProxyResponse(ctx, s, w, backend, cse, req)
}In the code pattern above, the final alteration of the MCP message happens. The function is using as json parser the wrapper around sonic (ai-gateway/internal/json), which is a case-insensitive parser, to reserialize the parameter struct with json.Marshal.
When the struct is re-marshaled, it uses the exact casing defined in the struct's JSON tag. This allows an attacker to "smuggle" a malicious value through a non-standard key name, bypassing case-sensitive filters on previous stages of the request handling by other MCP-compliant components.
In conclusion, the described MCP message alteration is ensuring that the final proxied version by Envoy-AI Gateway will become "canonical" and delivered upstream with smuggled malicious values.
Other Message Types
The Parser Differential is not limited to tools/call. It is a pervasive design issue caused by the Go SDK and Sonic manipulation of MCP Messages.
List of smuggling sinks:
tools/callprompts/getresources/read
In conclusion, the reported smuggling problem is systemic in the AI Proxy.
Proof of Concept
Payload:
{
"jsonrpc": "2.0",
"method": "tools/call",
"params": {
"name": "backend__greet", // SAFE: Validated & Allowed by Edge Proxy
"Name": "backend__secretTool", // UNSAFE: By-passes Edge authz checks, altered by Envoy and delivered upstream
"arguments": {"name": "Exploit"}
},
"id": 1
}Scenario:
The full PoC can be downloaded as envoy-security@googlegroups.com at: https://doyensec.sendsafely.com/receive/?thread=3574-4CPK&packageCode=lAXsPv8NK0tR0VTEXno9DZjFB5Ph3eKaSER6rpiirvk#keyCode=R_jMV3ENlORCmzkka3jwupPgsUq-TqNOAoizUqzlWHg
Prerequisites are having installed: Minikube, Docker and Helm.
In order to reproduce the scenario, it is sufficient to run the described stack with the commands below:
chmod +x full_PoC.sh
./full_PoC.sh
The PoC will:
- Start a MCP-cmpliant downstream proxy that should block requests to
backend__secretTool
- Start the Envoy AI Gateway and configure it as basic router
- Start an upstream MCP server exposing
backend__secretTool and backend_greet
- Send MCP
tools/call requests to the downstream proxy to demonstrate the vulnerability
It is also possible to inspect the full traffic proccessing logs at PoC/logs/.
The example below shows the final PoC smuggled message received and executed by the upstream MCP Server:
cat PoC/logs/server_container.log
...[REDACTED]...
INFO: 10.244.0.6:33404 - "POST /mcp HTTP/1.1" 200 OK
[2026-02-11T14:57:11.055237] ← PROCESSED MCP REQ: initialize
INFO: 10.244.0.6:33404 - "POST /mcp HTTP/1.1" 202 Accepted
INFO: 10.244.0.6:33420 - "POST /mcp HTTP/1.1" 200 OK
[2026-02-11T14:57:11.334681] → RECEIVED MCP REQ: tools/list
[2026-02-11T14:57:11.334924] Payload: {
"method": "tools/list",
"params": null
}
[2026-02-11T14:57:11.335298] ← PROCESSED MCP REQ: tools/list
[2026-02-11T14:57:11.336396] → RECEIVED MCP REQ: tools/call
[2026-02-11T14:57:11.336467] Payload: {
"task": null,
"meta": null,
"name": "greet",
"arguments": {
"name": "User"
}
}
[2026-02-11T14:57:11.336665] greet called with name=User
[2026-02-11T14:57:11.336935] ← PROCESSED MCP REQ: tools/call
INFO: 10.244.0.6:33420 - "POST /mcp HTTP/1.1" 200 OK
[2026-02-11T14:57:11.552185] → RECEIVED MCP REQ: tools/call
[2026-02-11T14:57:11.552341] Payload: {
"task": null,
"meta": null,
"name": "secretTool",
"arguments": {
"name": "ExploitUser"
}
}
[2026-02-11T14:57:11.552422] LEAK: secretTool called with name=ExploitUser
[2026-02-11T14:57:11.552483] ← PROCESSED MCP REQ: tools/call
While below is reported the log of the downstream compliant proxy that allowed the message as compliant greet command before it was smuggled by Envoy AI Proxy:
2026-02-11 14:57:11,408 - downstream-proxy - INFO - Incoming request: method='tools/call' params={'name': 'backend__secretTool', 'arguments': {'name': 'Hacker'}} jsonrpc='2.0' id=3 [tool: backend__secretTool]
2026-02-11 14:57:11,408 - downstream-proxy - INFO - Inspecting tools/call for tool: backend__secretTool
2026-02-11 14:57:11,408 - downstream-proxy - WARNING - BLOCKED: Attempt to call restricted tool 'backend__secretTool'
INFO: 127.0.0.1:33768 - "POST /mcp HTTP/1.1" 403 Forbidden
2026-02-11 14:57:11,514 - downstream-proxy - INFO - Incoming request: method='tools/call' params={'name': 'backend__greet', 'arguments': {'name': 'ExploitUser'}, 'Name': 'backend__secretTool'} jsonrpc='2.0' id=3 [tool: backend__greet]
2026-02-11 14:57:11,514 - downstream-proxy - INFO - Inspecting tools/call for tool: backend__greet
2026-02-11 14:57:11,514 - downstream-proxy - INFO - ALLOWED: Tool 'backend__greet' passed policy check.
2026-02-11 14:57:11,578 - httpx - INFO - HTTP Request: POST http://envoy-default-aigw-run-85f8cf28.envoy-gateway-system.svc.cluster.local:1975/mcp "HTTP/1.1 200 OK"
INFO: 127.0.0.1:33780 - "POST /mcp HTTP/1.1" 200 OK
Impact
This vulnerability makes downstream authorization layers ineffective when Envoy AI Gateway is used as a router. By altering the message content, Envoy effectively acts as a "Confused Deputy" that:
- Trusted Input: Takes input trusted by the other MCP-compliant actors
- Malicious Transformation: Converts it into a totally different, but compliant, MCP message. Violating the transparency nature of proxies and altering a valid request into a malicious one
- Trusted Output: Sends it off as a valid request to the upstream backend
Authentication and Authorization guarantees provided by prior actors or MCP manipulations are nullified because the original message is not the message the target Backend receives.
Remediation
-
Strict Protocol Compliance
Envoy AI Gateway must enforce Strict Case Sensitivity during JSON unmarshalling to comply with JSON-RPC 2.0.
-
Reject Unknown Fields In Protocol Reserved Areas
Enable DisallowUnknownFields.
-
Preserve Integrity
If Envoy acts as a transparent router, it should avoid unnecessary re-serialization of the payload body unless modification is explicitly required and safe. If normalization is required, it must be lossless and strictly validated.
It should be highlighted that after our root-cause analysis, github.com/modelcontextprotocol/go-sdk is ultimately responsible for the initial part the issue. As a result, we would expect the maintainers to fix the vulnerability upstream.
As a general recommendation, Envoy AI Gateway should use a JSON RPC parser and subsequent JSON parsing strategies in sonic which are following the SPEC to prevent the differentials, forcing the case sensitive matching on MCP messages.
Doyensec has already reported the Go-SDK violation of the JSON RPC Specification via Hackerone.
anaximand3r Reporter
Envoy AI Gateway was found to be affected by a protocol parser differential vulnerability due to improper implementation of the JSON-RPC 2.0 specification. Such differential causes a MCP message alteration, potentially causing a bypass of security controls in a multi-layered architecture.
According to the JSON RPC Spec used by Model Context Protocol, JSON RPC should be case sensitive https://www.jsonrpc.org/specification
The AI Gateway is accepting and processing case-variant fields that compliant MCP implementations correctly ignore. Crucially, Envoy does not just "pass through" the message by acting as a transparent proxy,it alterates the traffic, allowing smuggling of unwanted requests.
The following steps represent the incoming message alteration:
Namefield over the authorizednamefield due to internal case-insentitive parsing by libraries such asmodelcontextprotocol/go-sdk/jsonrpcandgithub.tiyicn.workers.dev/bytedance/sonicnamefield with the malicious value from theNamefieldNamefield){"name": "backend__secretTool"}) and forwards it upstreamThis "smuggling" effect means Envoy actively transforms a request that might have been checked by any prior MCP-compliant implementation into a request that is valid and altered (from the perspective of the upstream backend), effectively introducing protocol modifications that may allow bypassing any prior authorization layer.
Root Cause Analysis
The root cause is a parser differential combined with serialization quirk typical of Go-based JSON parsers:
json.Unmarshallooks for an a case-insensitive match. Go matches "Name" to the struct tagjson:"name". If"name": "safe"is also present, the last key processed wins, allowing an attacker to inject a different tool name when the MCP message reaches the Go-SDK parsingjson:"..."tag. Consequently, an overwritten value from a cased field could be stored in a proper lowercased parameter, later processed by a spec-compliant MCP message receiverThe vulnerability involves the usage of the
jsonrpcmodule ofgithub.tiyicn.workers.dev/modelcontextprotocol/go-sdk, which is not following the MCP mandated JSON RPC spec for messages parsing, using case insensitive matching.The non-compliant parsing primitive is
jsonrpc.DecodeMessage, it is widely used to parse the incoming MCP messages.See at:
ai-gateway/internal/mcpproxy/handlers.go:242,739ai-gateway/internal/mcpproxy/mcpproxy.go:303ai-gateway/internal/mcpproxy/session.go:409ai-gateway/internal/mcpproxy/sse.go:88Consequently, internals relying on objects parsed with the cited primitive are using case-insentive parsing, also subject to Unicode to ASCII Folding.
Furthermore, the internal logic is also relying on the
internal/jsonpackage, acting as a wrapper aroundgithub.tiyicn.workers.dev/bytedance/sonic(Sonic), a high-performance JSON library that defaults to loose, case-insensitive unmarshalling.File:
internal/json/json.goIn combination with the above mentioned spec departure, the message MCP message reconstruction logic is causing an alteration of the protocol calls passing through the gateway.
Example Vulnerable Data Flow - tools/call
The alteration occurs in
ai-gateway/internal/mcpproxy/handlers.go:180during the processing of a functionservePOST.As an example, we can focus on the processing of incoming MCP
tools/callrequests.When the gateway receives a JSON-RPC request, it executes
servePOSTfunction, which then callsjsonrpc.DecodeMessageto parse the body of the bytes read from the request.See at
ai-gateway/internal/mcpproxy/handlers.go:235-242If the request method is
tools/call, the following code is executed atai-gateway/internal/mcpproxy/handlers.go:366At this point, the
paramsobject is amcp.CallToolParamsstruct incorrectly parsed by Anthropic'sjsonrpc.DecodeMessageas case insentitive object. Theparamsobject is then passed tohandleToolCallRequestfunction, which will execute the tool call.See at definition of
handleToolCallRequestatai-gateway/internal/mcpproxy/handlers.go:638In the code pattern above, the final alteration of the MCP message happens. The function is using as
jsonparser the wrapper aroundsonic(ai-gateway/internal/json), which is a case-insensitive parser, to reserialize the parameter struct withjson.Marshal.When the struct is re-marshaled, it uses the exact casing defined in the struct's JSON tag. This allows an attacker to "smuggle" a malicious value through a non-standard key name, bypassing case-sensitive filters on previous stages of the request handling by other MCP-compliant components.
In conclusion, the described MCP message alteration is ensuring that the final proxied version by Envoy-AI Gateway will become "canonical" and delivered upstream with smuggled malicious values.
Other Message Types
The Parser Differential is not limited to
tools/call. It is a pervasive design issue caused by the Go SDK and Sonic manipulation of MCP Messages.List of smuggling sinks:
tools/callprompts/getresources/readIn conclusion, the reported smuggling problem is systemic in the AI Proxy.
Proof of Concept
Payload:
{ "jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "tools/call", "params": { "name": "backend__greet", // SAFE: Validated & Allowed by Edge Proxy "Name": "backend__secretTool", // UNSAFE: By-passes Edge authz checks, altered by Envoy and delivered upstream "arguments": {"name": "Exploit"} }, "id": 1 }Scenario:
The full PoC can be downloaded as
envoy-security@googlegroups.comat: https://doyensec.sendsafely.com/receive/?thread=3574-4CPK&packageCode=lAXsPv8NK0tR0VTEXno9DZjFB5Ph3eKaSER6rpiirvk#keyCode=R_jMV3ENlORCmzkka3jwupPgsUq-TqNOAoizUqzlWHgPrerequisites are having installed: Minikube, Docker and Helm.
In order to reproduce the scenario, it is sufficient to run the described stack with the commands below:
The PoC will:
backend__secretToolbackend__secretToolandbackend_greettools/callrequests to the downstream proxy to demonstrate the vulnerabilityIt is also possible to inspect the full traffic proccessing logs at
PoC/logs/.The example below shows the final PoC smuggled message received and executed by the upstream MCP Server:
While below is reported the log of the downstream compliant proxy that allowed the message as compliant
greetcommand before it was smuggled by Envoy AI Proxy:Impact
This vulnerability makes downstream authorization layers ineffective when Envoy AI Gateway is used as a router. By altering the message content, Envoy effectively acts as a "Confused Deputy" that:
Authentication and Authorization guarantees provided by prior actors or MCP manipulations are nullified because the original message is not the message the target Backend receives.
Remediation
Strict Protocol Compliance
Envoy AI Gateway must enforce Strict Case Sensitivity during JSON unmarshalling to comply with JSON-RPC 2.0.
Reject Unknown Fields In Protocol Reserved Areas
Enable
DisallowUnknownFields.Preserve Integrity
If Envoy acts as a transparent router, it should avoid unnecessary re-serialization of the payload body unless modification is explicitly required and safe. If normalization is required, it must be lossless and strictly validated.
It should be highlighted that after our root-cause analysis,
github.com/modelcontextprotocol/go-sdkis ultimately responsible for the initial part the issue. As a result, we would expect the maintainers to fix the vulnerability upstream.As a general recommendation, Envoy AI Gateway should use a JSON RPC parser and subsequent JSON parsing strategies in
sonicwhich are following the SPEC to prevent the differentials, forcing the case sensitive matching on MCP messages.Doyensec has already reported the Go-SDK violation of the JSON RPC Specification via Hackerone.