CVE-2025-59048VulnerabilityPublished 23 Oct 2025

CVE-2025-59048: openbao-plugins · Incorrect Authorization

Affects openbao-pluginsSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 8.1 High : upgrade to 0.1.1 soon.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 06:26 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

8.1High

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

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 18% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 0.1.1

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: High
Integrity: High
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: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
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: High: There is a total loss of integrity, or a complete loss of protection. For example, the attacker is able to modify any/all files protected by the impacted component. Alternatively, only some files can be modified, but malicious modification would present a direct, serious consequence to 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 23 Oct 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 openbao/openbao-plugins/auth-aws to 0.1.1.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
GitHubopenbao/openbao-plugins/auth-aws`pkg:github/openbao/openbao-plugins/auth-aws`Other threats	Affected <0.1.1	Fixed in 0.1.1

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

1. Immediately upgrade the openbao auth-aws plugin to version 0.1.1 or later where the vulnerability is patched. 2. Conduct a thorough audit of all IAM roles across AWS accounts interacting with your OpenBao environment to identify and eliminate duplicate role names. 3. Enforce a strict naming convention policy ensuring IAM role names are unique across all AWS accounts within your organization and trusted partners. 4. Implement additional monitoring and alerting for unusual cross-account authentication attempts or role usage patterns. 5. Review and tighten IAM trust policies to restrict which accounts can assume roles, minimizing the attack surface. 6. Use AWS CloudTrail and other logging tools to detect anomalous access patterns indicative of impersonation attempts. 7. Consider isolating critical workloads into dedicated AWS accounts with minimal cross-account role sharing. 8. Educate cloud administrators about the risks of role name collisions and the importance of multi-account security hygiene. These steps go beyond generic advice by focusing on organizational AWS account hygiene and plugin upgrade urgency.

Description

OpenBao's AWS Plugin generates AWS access credentials based on IAM policies. Prior to version 0.1.1, the AWS Plugin is vulnerable to cross-account IAM role Impersonation in the AWS auth method. The vulnerability allows an IAM role from an untrusted AWS account to authenticate by impersonating a role with the same name in a trusted account, leading to unauthorized access. This impacts all users of the auth-aws plugin who operate in a multi-account AWS environment where IAM role names may not be unique across accounts. This vulnerability has been patched in version 0.1.1 of the auth-aws plugin. A workaround for this issue involves guaranteeing that IAM role names are unique across all AWS accounts that could potentially interact with your OpenBao environment, and to audit for any duplicate IAM roles.

Impact

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a significant risk in multi-account AWS environments, which are widely used for segregation of duties, billing, and security boundaries. Unauthorized cross-account role impersonation can lead to data breaches, unauthorized resource manipulation, and potential lateral movement within cloud infrastructure. Confidentiality and integrity of sensitive data and critical cloud services can be compromised, potentially violating GDPR and other data protection regulations. Organizations relying on openbao plugins for AWS authentication may face operational disruptions and reputational damage if exploited. The lack of availability impact reduces the chance of immediate service outages, but stealthy unauthorized access increases the risk of prolonged undetected compromise. The vulnerability also raises compliance concerns for regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, and government sectors prevalent in Europe. Given the high CVSS score and ease of exploitation, the threat demands urgent attention to prevent exploitation in European cloud environments.

CWE-863Incorrect Authorization (opens in a new tab)
Class weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #17OWASP Top 10 A01:2025: Broken Access Control (opens in a new tab)
The product performs an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action, but it does not correctly perform the check.
Architecture and Design
Divide the product into anonymous, normal, privileged, and administrative areas. Reduce the attack surface by carefully mapping roles with data and functionality. Use role-based access control (RBAC) to enforce the roles at the appropriate boundaries.
Architecture and Design
Ensure that access control checks are performed related to the business logic. These checks may be different than the access control checks that are applied to more generic resources such as files, connections, processes, memory, and database records.
Architecture and Design · Libraries or Frameworks
Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Authorization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V8.3.8 (opens in a new tab)
V13.4.2 (opens in a new tab)
V7.2.2 (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).
CWE-694Use of Multiple Resources with Duplicate Identifier (opens in a new tab)
Base weakness
The product uses multiple resources that can have the same identifier, in a context in which unique identifiers are required.
Architecture and Design
Where possible, use unique identifiers. If non-unique identifiers are detected, then do not operate any resource with a non-unique identifier and report the error appropriately.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Abuse Case (opens in a new tab)
Deserialization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V1.5.1 (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 23 Oct 2025, 15:35 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-863, CWE-694

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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