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VulnerabilityPublished

CVE-2025-12044: HashiCorp Vault · Unthrottled Resource Allocation

Affects HashiCorp VaultSource CVE Database V5

0

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.5 High · fixed in 1.21.0 : patch HashiCorp Vault soon.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 17:16 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score
7.5High
How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.
EPSS
0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 44% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch
Available – fixed in 1.21.0
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Exploitation evidence

  1. Disclosed: evidence found.

    CVE published 23 Oct 2025

  2. Detectable: no evidence on record.

    No public nuclei template indexed

  3. Weaponised: no evidence on record.

    No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB

  4. Exploited in the wild: no evidence on record.

    Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation

  5. Observed by OffSeq Mirage: no evidence on record.

    No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

What to do

Affected software

ProductAffectedFixed in
HashiCorp VaultAffected
  • =1.20.3
Fixed in–

AI-suggested

  1. Immediately upgrade all affected Vault instances to the patched versions: Vault Community Edition 1.21.0 or Enterprise versions 1.16.27, 1.19.11, 1.20.5, or 1.21.0.
  2. Implement network-level access controls to restrict unauthenticated access to Vault endpoints, such as IP whitelisting, VPNs, or zero trust network segmentation.
  3. Deploy Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) or API gateways capable of detecting and rate-limiting suspicious JSON payloads to prevent abuse before reaching Vault.
  4. Monitor Vault server resource utilization and logs for unusual spikes in JSON processing or request rates indicative of exploitation attempts.
  5. Conduct regular security assessments and penetration testing focused on API abuse and resource exhaustion scenarios.
  6. Educate DevOps and security teams about this vulnerability and ensure incident response plans include steps for Vault service disruptions.
  7. Consider implementing additional rate limiting or request throttling mechanisms at the application or infrastructure level to complement Vault’s internal controls.

Description

Vault and Vault Enterprise (“Vault”) are vulnerable to an unauthenticated denial of service when processing JSON payloads. This occurs due to a regression from a previous fix for [+HCSEC-2025-24+|https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/hcsec-2025-24-vault-denial-of-service-though-complex-json-payloads/76393]  which allowed for processing JSON payloads before applying rate limits. This vulnerability, CVE-2025-12044, is fixed in Vault Community Edition 1.21.0 and Vault Enterprise 1.16.27, 1.19.11, 1.20.5, and 1.21.0.

References

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