High severity · published Aug 9, 2025
CVE-2025-54996
OpenBao Root Namespace Operator May Elevate Token Privileges
7.2
CVSS
0.3%
EPSS
No
On KEV
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 vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
High
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.3% · higher than 26% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
OP
openbao · openbao
< 2.3.2 · source: vendor, NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-54996
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-54996
Issue Tracking
https://github.com/openbao/openbao/pull/1627
Release Notes
https://github.com/openbao/openbao/releases/tag/v2.3.2
Vendor Advisory
https://github.com/openbao/openbao/security/advisories/GHSA-vf84-mxrq-crqc
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