CVE-2025-54996
While the identity system allowed adding arbitrary policies, which in turn could contain capability grants on arbitrary paths, the root policy was restricted to manual generation using unseal or recovery key shares.
Does this matter?
High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.31%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.
Description
OpenBao exists to provide a software solution to manage, store, and distribute sensitive data including secrets, certificates, and keys. In versions 2.3.1 and below, accounts with access to highly-privileged identity entity systems in root namespaces were able to increase their scope directly to the root policy. While the identity system allowed adding arbitrary policies, which in turn could contain capability grants on arbitrary paths, the root policy was restricted to manual generation using unseal or recovery key shares. The global root policy was not accessible from child namespaces. This issue is fixed in version 2.3.2. To workaround this vulnerability, use of denied_parameters in any policy which has access to the affected identity endpoints (on identity entities) may be sufficient to prohibit this type of attack.
- CVSS 3.1
- 7.2 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- EPSS
- 0.31% probability · 23th percentile
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Weakness
- CWE-269
- Affected
- openbao/openbao
- Source
- security-advisories@github.com
References
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.