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Fencer Vulns
high 7.2

CVE-2025-54996 json

OpenBao Root Namespace Operator May Elevate Token Privileges

published 2025-08-08 15 mo ago modified 2026-09-08 2 mo ago also BIT-openbao-2025-54996 , EUVD-2025-24038 , GHSA-vf84-mxrq-crqc , GO-2025-3857

cvss
7.2
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 29%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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.

Patch / fix

  • go github.com/openbao/openbao 0.0.0-20250806193240-9b0b5d4f345f, 2.3.2
  • bitnami openbao 0.0.0-20250806193240-9b0b5d4f345f, 2.3.2
  • openbao openbao 0.0.0-20250806193240-9b0b5d4f345f, 2.3.2
  • govulncheck-vulndb SLE Module for Package Hub 15 SP6, openSUSE Leap 15.6 0.0.20250814T182633-150000.1.98.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:02912-1

  • openbao openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.3.2-1.1
  • govulncheck-vulndb openSUSE Tumbleweed 0.0.20250811T192933-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2025:15460-1openSUSE-SU-2025:15434-1

  • openbao Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 2.3.2-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2025-54996

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
14 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.35% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 29% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.2 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
GitHub 3.1 7.2 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
OSV 3.1 7.2 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
go github.com/openbao/openbao
>=0.1.0, <2.3.2
<0.0.0-20250806193240-9b0b5d4f345f
>=0.1.0
2.3.2
0.0.0-20250806193240-9b0b5d4f345f
bitnami openbao
<0.0.0-20250806193240-9b0b5d4f345f
>=0.0.1, <2.3.2
0.0.0-20250806193240-9b0b5d4f345f
2.3.2

Affected products

  • openbao openbao

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-269 Improper Privilege Management
  • CWE-266 Incorrect Privilege Assignment

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

CPEs and fixed versions use Anchore's correction of NVD's data: Added CPE configurations because not yet analyzed by NVD.