CVE-2025-49830 is a high-severity path traversal vulnerability (CWE-22) affecting CyberArk Conjur, a secrets management and application identity solution used to secure infrastructure. The vulnerability exists in the policy YAML parser component of Conjur's Secrets Manager, Self-Hosted (formerly Conjur Enterprise) and Conjur OSS versions prior to 13.5.1/13.6.1 and 1.22.1 respectively. An authenticated attacker with the ability to load policies can exploit this flaw by crafting malicious policy YAML files that reference arbitrary files on the Conjur server's filesystem. This can be used for reconnaissance to map the directory structure or to include and process unintended files as part of the policy loading process. The vulnerability arises due to improper limitation of pathname inputs, allowing traversal outside the intended restricted directories. The CVSS 4.0 base score is 7.1, reflecting network attack vector, low attack complexity, no privileges required beyond authentication, no user interaction, and high impact on confidentiality. The vulnerability does not affect integrity or availability directly but can lead to sensitive information disclosure. CyberArk has addressed this issue in Conjur OSS 1.22.1 and Secrets Manager, Self-Hosted versions 13.5.1 and 13.6.1. No known exploits are currently reported in the wild. This vulnerability is significant because Conjur is widely used to manage secrets and credentials in cloud and enterprise environments, and unauthorized file access could expose sensitive configuration or credential files, undermining the security of the entire infrastructure relying on Conjur for secrets management.

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2025-49830 can be substantial. Many enterprises and public sector entities in Europe rely on CyberArk Conjur for centralized secrets management to secure cloud-native applications, DevOps pipelines, and infrastructure automation. Exploitation could allow attackers to gain insight into the internal file structure of the Conjur server, potentially exposing sensitive secrets, configuration files, or credentials stored on the system. This could lead to further lateral movement, privilege escalation, or data breaches within the organization's infrastructure. Given the GDPR and other stringent data protection regulations in Europe, unauthorized disclosure of secrets or credentials could result in regulatory penalties, reputational damage, and operational disruption. The vulnerability requires authentication but no elevated privileges beyond policy loading rights, which may be granted to multiple DevOps or security team members, increasing the attack surface. The lack of user interaction and network exploitability means attackers could automate reconnaissance and exploitation remotely once authenticated. Therefore, the threat is particularly relevant for organizations with complex DevOps environments and self-hosted secrets management deployments.

To mitigate CVE-2025-49830 effectively, European organizations should: 1) Immediately upgrade affected Conjur OSS and Secrets Manager, Self-Hosted instances to versions 1.22.1, 13.5.1, or 13.6.1 or later, where the vulnerability is patched. 2) Restrict policy loading permissions strictly to trusted administrators and minimize the number of users who can load or modify policies to reduce the risk of malicious policy injection. 3) Implement strong authentication and access controls around the Conjur management interfaces, including multi-factor authentication and network segmentation to limit exposure. 4) Monitor policy load activities and audit logs for unusual or unauthorized policy changes that could indicate exploitation attempts. 5) Conduct regular security reviews of policy YAML files to detect suspicious file references or anomalies. 6) Consider deploying runtime detection tools that can identify anomalous file access patterns on the Conjur server. 7) Educate DevOps and security teams about the risks of improper policy file handling and enforce secure development and deployment practices for policy management. These steps go beyond generic advice by focusing on controlling policy loading capabilities, enhancing monitoring, and ensuring timely patching.