CVE-2025-14503 is a vulnerability identified in the AWS Harmonix on AWS framework, specifically affecting versions 0.3.0 through 0.4.1. The root cause is an overly permissive IAM trust policy within the framework's sample code for provisioning EKS environment roles. The trust policy is configured to trust the AWS account root principal, which is a broad and highly privileged entity. This configuration flaw allows any principal within the AWS account that has the sts:AssumeRole permission to assume the role intended for environment provisioning. Because the role grants administrative privileges, this results in privilege escalation. The vulnerability falls under CWE-266, which concerns incorrect privilege assignment. Exploitation requires an authenticated user with certain permissions but does not require user interaction or additional authentication steps. The CVSS 4.0 vector indicates network attack vector, low attack complexity, no privileges required beyond the initial sts:AssumeRole permission, and no user interaction, with high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Although no known exploits are currently reported in the wild, the potential for abuse is significant given the administrative access that can be gained. AWS has addressed this issue in Harmonix on AWS version 0.4.2 and later, recommending immediate upgrades. The vulnerability highlights the risks of overly broad trust policies in IAM roles, especially in complex cloud environments like EKS. Organizations using the affected versions should audit their IAM policies and role trust relationships to ensure they follow the principle of least privilege and restrict role assumption to only necessary principals.

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a serious risk to cloud infrastructure security, particularly those leveraging AWS EKS environments with the Harmonix framework. Unauthorized privilege escalation can lead to full administrative control over cloud resources, enabling attackers to exfiltrate sensitive data, disrupt services, or deploy malicious workloads. This can compromise confidentiality, integrity, and availability of critical business applications and data. The impact is amplified in sectors with stringent data protection requirements such as finance, healthcare, and government. Additionally, regulatory compliance risks arise if unauthorized access leads to data breaches under GDPR. The ease of exploitation (no user interaction and network accessible) increases the threat level. Organizations relying on automated provisioning and management frameworks like Harmonix must be vigilant, as this vulnerability undermines trust boundaries within their cloud environments. The absence of known exploits in the wild does not diminish the urgency, as the vulnerability is straightforward to exploit given the misconfiguration. Failure to remediate could result in significant operational disruption and reputational damage.

1. Upgrade all deployments of Harmonix on AWS to version 0.4.2 or later immediately to apply the vendor's fix. 2. Conduct a thorough audit of IAM trust policies, particularly those associated with EKS provisioning roles, to ensure they do not trust overly broad principals such as the account root. 3. Restrict role assumption permissions to the minimum necessary set of principals, ideally specific service accounts or roles rather than the root principal. 4. Implement strict monitoring and alerting on sts:AssumeRole API calls, focusing on unusual or unexpected role assumptions. 5. Apply the principle of least privilege across all IAM roles and policies to minimize potential attack surfaces. 6. Use AWS IAM Access Analyzer or similar tools to identify and remediate overly permissive trust relationships. 7. Regularly review and update cloud infrastructure as code templates and sample code to avoid deploying vulnerable configurations. 8. Educate cloud administrators and developers on secure IAM role configuration best practices to prevent recurrence. 9. Consider implementing multi-factor authentication and session policies that limit the duration and scope of assumed roles. 10. Maintain an incident response plan tailored to cloud privilege escalation scenarios to enable rapid containment if exploitation occurs.