CVE-2025-41248VulnerabilityPublished 16 Sep 2025Updated 18 Sep 2025

CVE-2025-41248: VMware Spring Security · Vulnerability

Affects VMware Spring SecuritySource CVE Database V5

Mentioned vulnerabilities

CVE-2025-41249

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.5 High : upgrade to 6.6.0 or 6.5.0 soon.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 07:57 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

7.5High

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 38% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 6.6.0, 6.5.0

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: High
Integrity: None
Availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: High: There is total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all resources within the impacted component being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 16 Sep 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by 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 2026-10-26.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade VMware Spring Security to 6.6.0 or 6.5.0.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
VMware Spring Security	Affected >=6.4.0 <6.5.0 >=6.5.0 <6.6.0	Fixed in 6.5.0 6.6.0

AI-suggested

Organizations should immediately audit their use of Spring Security, specifically checking for the use of @EnableMethodSecurity and method-level security annotations on generic superclasses or interfaces. The primary mitigation is to upgrade affected Spring Security versions (6.4.x and 6.5.x) to patched releases once available from VMware or the Spring project. If you cannot patch yet, consider refactoring code to avoid placing security annotations on methods in generic superclasses or interfaces, or disable @EnableMethodSecurity if feasible. Implement additional compensating controls such as network segmentation, strict firewall rules, and enhanced monitoring of application logs for suspicious access patterns. Conduct thorough code reviews focusing on authorization logic in generic class hierarchies. Employ runtime application self-protection (RASP) or web application firewalls (WAF) with custom rules to detect and block anomalous method invocation patterns. Finally, ensure incident response teams are prepared to detect and respond to potential exploitation attempts.

Description

The Spring Security annotation detection mechanism may not correctly resolve annotations on methods within type hierarchies with a parameterized super type with unbounded generics. This can be an issue when using @PreAuthorize and other method security annotations, resulting in an authorization bypass. Your application may be affected by this if you are using Spring Security's @EnableMethodSecurity feature. You are not affected by this if you are not using @EnableMethodSecurity or if you do not use security annotations on methods in generic superclasses or generic interfaces. This CVE is published in conjunction with CVE-2025-41249 https://spring.io/security/cve-2025-41249 .

Impact

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a significant risk, especially for enterprises heavily reliant on Spring Security for securing Java-based web applications and microservices. The authorization bypass can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive business functions, exposing confidential data and potentially violating GDPR and other data protection regulations. Since the flaw affects method-level security annotations, attackers could execute privileged operations without authentication or authorization, leading to data leakage or unauthorized actions within critical systems. The impact is heightened in sectors such as finance, healthcare, government, and telecommunications, where Spring Security is widely adopted and data sensitivity is paramount. The lack of required privileges or user interaction for exploitation means attackers can remotely exploit this vulnerability over the network, increasing the attack surface. Although no known exploits exist yet, the high CVSS score and the widespread use of Spring Security in Europe make this a pressing concern for security teams.

CWE-289Authentication Bypass by Alternate Name (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessOWASP Top 10 A07:2025: Authentication Failures (opens in a new tab)
The product performs authentication based on the name of a resource being accessed, or the name of the actor performing the access, but it does not properly check all possible names for that resource or actor.
Architecture and Design · Input Validation
Avoid making decisions based on names of resources (e.g. files) if those resources can have alternate names.
Implementation · Input Validation
Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
Implementation · Input Validation
Inputs should be decoded and canonicalized to the application's current internal representation before being validated (CWE-180). Make sure that the application does not decode the same input twice (CWE-174).
OWASP Cheat Sheets
OWASP Authentication (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V2.8.5 (opens in a new tab)
V2.8.4 (opens in a new tab)
V9.2.3 (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

spring.io/security/cve-2025-41248 (opens in a new tab)

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 24 Sep 2025, 01:03 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-289

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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