VulnerabilityPublished 19 Nov 2025

CVE-2025-64521: goauthentik authentik · Authentication Bypass by Alternate Name

Affects goauthentik authentikSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 4.8 Medium : upgrade to 2025.10.2 or 2025.8.5 when convenient.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 10:12 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

4.8Medium

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

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 14% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 2025.10.2, 2025.8.5

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: High
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Changed
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: Low
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: High: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide significant (e.g., administrative) control over the vulnerable component that could affect component-wide settings and files.
User Interaction: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Changed: An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.
Confidentiality: Low: There is some loss of confidentiality. Access to some restricted information is obtained, but the attacker does not have control over what information is obtained, or the amount or kind of loss is limited. The information disclosure does not cause a direct, serious loss to the impacted component.
Integrity: Low: Modification of data is possible, but the attacker does not have control over the consequence of a modification, or the amount of modification is limited. The data modification does not have a direct, serious impact on 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 19 Nov 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 26 Oct 2026.

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 or the CVSS exploit maturity 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 goauthentik/authentik to 2025.10.2 or 2025.8.5.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
GitHubgoauthentik/authentik`pkg:github/goauthentik/authentik`Other threats	Affected <2025.8.5 <2025.10.2	Fixed in 2025.8.5 2025.10.2

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

AI-suggested

European organizations should immediately upgrade authentik installations to versions 2025.8.5 or 2025.10.2 where this vulnerability is fixed. Until upgrades are possible, administrators should implement explicit policy checks within authentik to verify the active status of service accounts before granting authentication, denying access if the account is deactivated. Regular audits of service accounts and OAuth client credentials should be conducted to identify and disable unused or stale accounts. Monitoring authentication logs for unusual activity related to service accounts can help detect attempted exploitation. Additionally, organizations should enforce the principle of least privilege on service accounts and restrict their use to necessary scopes only. Integrating multi-factor authentication (MFA) for administrative access and sensitive OAuth operations can further reduce risk. Finally, ensure that incident response plans include procedures for addressing identity provider compromises.

Description

authentik is an open-source Identity Provider. Prior to versions 2025.8.5 and 2025.10.2, when authenticating with client_id and client_secret to an OAuth provider, authentik creates a service account for the provider. In previous authentik versions, authentication for this account was possible even when the account was deactivated. Other permissions are correctly applied and federation with other providers still take assigned policies correctly into account.authentik versions 2025.8.5 and 2025.10.2 fix this issue. A workaround involves adding a policy to the application that explicitly checks if the service account is still valid, and deny access if not.

Impact

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a moderate risk, primarily affecting the confidentiality and integrity of systems relying on authentik for OAuth authentication. Unauthorized authentication to deactivated service accounts could allow attackers to access sensitive internal services or data, potentially leading to data leakage or unauthorized actions. While the impact on availability is negligible, the breach of authentication controls can undermine trust in identity management systems, which are critical for compliance with GDPR and other data protection regulations. Organizations in sectors such as finance, healthcare, government, and critical infrastructure that use authentik may face increased risks of targeted attacks exploiting this flaw. The requirement for high privileges and user interaction reduces the likelihood of widespread exploitation but does not eliminate the threat in insider or advanced persistent threat scenarios. Failure to patch or implement mitigations could lead to regulatory penalties and reputational damage if unauthorized access results in data breaches.

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

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 26 Nov 2025, 18:03 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-289

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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