CVE-2025-54085 is a medium-severity vulnerability affecting the management console of Absolute Security's Secure Access product prior to version 13.56. The vulnerability allows attackers who already possess administrative access to the console and have been assigned a specific set of permissions to bypass those permissions and improperly read or modify other settings within the console. The attack complexity is low, meaning exploitation does not require sophisticated techniques or conditions. No prior authentication beyond administrative access is needed, and no user interaction is required to exploit this vulnerability. The vulnerability stems from improper permission enforcement (classified under CWE-276: Incorrect Default Permissions), which allows privilege escalation within the management console environment. The impact primarily affects confidentiality and integrity of the system settings, but does not affect availability. The CVSS 4.0 base score is 5.1, reflecting a medium severity level due to the requirement of high privileges for exploitation and limited impact scope. There are no known exploits in the wild at this time, and no patches have been linked yet. This vulnerability could allow an insider or a compromised administrator account to escalate their control beyond their intended permissions, potentially leading to unauthorized configuration changes or exposure of sensitive configuration data within the Secure Access management console.

For European organizations using Absolute Secure Access, this vulnerability poses a risk primarily in environments where multiple administrators or delegated administrators manage the Secure Access console. If an attacker gains administrative credentials or compromises an administrator account, they could exploit this vulnerability to bypass permission restrictions and alter security settings or access sensitive configuration data. This could undermine the security posture of the network access controls managed by Secure Access, potentially leading to further unauthorized access or misconfiguration. However, since exploitation requires administrative privileges and does not affect system availability, the risk is somewhat contained to insider threats or attackers who have already breached administrative accounts. The confidentiality and integrity of management console settings could be compromised, which may impact compliance with European data protection regulations such as GDPR if sensitive configuration data is exposed or altered. Organizations relying heavily on Secure Access for network security enforcement should consider this vulnerability a moderate risk that could facilitate lateral movement or privilege escalation within their security infrastructure.

To mitigate this vulnerability, European organizations should: 1) Immediately upgrade Absolute Secure Access to version 13.56 or later once available, as this will contain the fix for the permission bypass issue. 2) Enforce strict administrative account management policies, including multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all console administrators to reduce the risk of credential compromise. 3) Implement role-based access control (RBAC) carefully, ensuring that permissions are assigned following the principle of least privilege and regularly audited to detect any anomalies. 4) Monitor administrative console logs for unusual activity that could indicate attempts to exploit permission bypasses or unauthorized configuration changes. 5) Segment administrative access to the Secure Access console within the network and restrict access to trusted management networks only. 6) Conduct regular security awareness training for administrators to recognize phishing or social engineering attempts that could lead to credential compromise. 7) Prepare incident response procedures specifically addressing potential misuse of administrative privileges within Secure Access environments.