CVE-2025-23367 is an improper access control vulnerability found in the Wildfly Server's Role Based Access Control (RBAC) provider. Wildfly is a widely used open-source Java application server. The vulnerability arises because the Suspend and Resume operation handlers do not perform proper authorization checks to verify if the user has the required privileges before executing these actions. Specifically, users assigned to the Monitor or Auditor roles, which are intended to have read-only access, can exploit this flaw to suspend or resume the server. Suspending the server effectively halts its operations, causing a denial of service condition. The vulnerability affects Wildfly versions up to and including 28.0.0.Beta1. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 6.5 (medium severity), with an attack vector of network (AV:N), low attack complexity (AC:L), requiring privileges (PR:L), no user interaction (UI:N), unchanged scope (S:U), no impact on confidentiality or integrity (C:N/I:N), but high impact on availability (A:H). This means an attacker with some level of privileges but no user interaction can remotely cause service disruption. The flaw stems from a design oversight where the Suspend and Resume handlers fail to enforce role-based authorization, allowing unauthorized users to perform critical management operations. No public exploits have been reported yet, but the vulnerability poses a risk to service availability in environments using affected Wildfly versions. The issue was published on January 30, 2025, and is tracked under CVE-2025-23367.

The primary impact of CVE-2025-23367 is on the availability of services hosted on Wildfly servers. Unauthorized users with Monitor or Auditor roles can suspend the server, causing denial of service and disrupting business operations. For European organizations, this could lead to downtime of critical applications, affecting sectors such as finance, government, telecommunications, and manufacturing that rely on Java-based middleware. Although confidentiality and integrity are not directly impacted, the operational disruption can have cascading effects, including loss of customer trust, regulatory non-compliance (especially under GDPR if service availability impacts data processing), and financial losses. The ease of exploitation (low complexity, no user interaction) combined with network accessibility increases the risk profile. Organizations with distributed or cloud-hosted Wildfly instances may face challenges in detecting and responding to such unauthorized management actions promptly. The lack of known exploits currently reduces immediate risk but does not eliminate the threat, especially as attackers may develop exploits once the vulnerability is public.

1. Apply official patches or updates from Wildfly as soon as they become available to address the authorization check flaw in Suspend and Resume handlers. 2. Until patches are applied, restrict network access to Wildfly management interfaces using firewalls, VPNs, or network segmentation to limit exposure to authorized administrators only. 3. Review and tighten RBAC role assignments to ensure that only trusted users have Monitor or Auditor roles, minimizing the number of users who could exploit this vulnerability. 4. Implement continuous monitoring and alerting on management operations, especially Suspend and Resume commands, to detect unauthorized attempts promptly. 5. Employ multi-factor authentication (MFA) for management console access to add an additional layer of security. 6. Conduct regular audits of user roles and permissions within Wildfly to ensure compliance with the principle of least privilege. 7. Consider deploying Web Application Firewalls (WAF) or Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) that can detect anomalous management commands or traffic patterns targeting Wildfly servers. 8. Educate system administrators about this vulnerability and the importance of monitoring management operations.