CVE-2025-20323 is a medium-severity vulnerability affecting Splunk Enterprise versions prior to 9.4.3, 9.3.5, 9.2.7, and 9.1.10. The issue arises from insufficient access control in the Splunk Archiver application's saved searches, specifically the scheduled search named 'Bucket Copy Trigger.' This vulnerability allows a low-privileged user—who does not possess the 'admin' or 'power' roles—to disable this scheduled search. The 'Bucket Copy Trigger' is critical for managing data archival processes within Splunk, and its disruption could interfere with proper data retention and archival workflows. The vulnerability is exploitable remotely (network vector) with low attack complexity and requires low privileges but no user interaction. The impact is limited to integrity, as confidentiality and availability are not directly affected. There are no known exploits in the wild at the time of publication, and no patches are explicitly linked in the provided data, though fixed versions are identified. This vulnerability highlights a misconfiguration or design flaw in role-based access controls within Splunk's saved searches, which could be leveraged by malicious insiders or compromised low-privilege accounts to alter critical system operations.

For European organizations, the impact of this vulnerability could be significant in environments relying heavily on Splunk Enterprise for log management, security monitoring, and compliance reporting. Disabling the 'Bucket Copy Trigger' could lead to incomplete or delayed archival of log data, potentially violating data retention policies mandated by regulations such as GDPR. This could impair forensic investigations, incident response, and compliance audits. While the vulnerability does not directly expose sensitive data or cause system downtime, the integrity compromise of archival processes undermines trust in the security monitoring infrastructure. Organizations in sectors with stringent regulatory requirements—such as finance, healthcare, and critical infrastructure—may face increased risk of non-compliance and operational disruption if this vulnerability is exploited.

European organizations should prioritize upgrading Splunk Enterprise to versions 9.4.3, 9.3.5, 9.2.7, or 9.1.10 or later, where this vulnerability is addressed. In the interim, administrators should audit and tighten role-based access controls, ensuring that only authorized users with 'admin' or 'power' roles can modify or disable scheduled searches, particularly those related to data archival. Implement monitoring and alerting on changes to critical scheduled searches like 'Bucket Copy Trigger' to detect unauthorized modifications promptly. Additionally, organizations should review Splunk app configurations and saved searches for any other potential access control weaknesses. Employing Splunk's audit logs to track user actions can aid in early detection of misuse. Finally, integrating Splunk with centralized identity and access management solutions can help enforce stricter access policies and reduce the risk of privilege escalation.