CVE-2025-20229: Remote Code Execution Vulnerability in Splunk Enterprise and Cloud Platforms

Overview

The cybersecurity landscape is constantly evolving, with new vulnerabilities being discovered and patched on a regular basis. One such vulnerability, CVE-2025-20229, has been identified in certain versions of Splunk Enterprise and Splunk Cloud Platform. This vulnerability allows a low-privileged user to perform a Remote Code Execution (RCE) exploit, potentially compromising systems or leading to data leakage.
Splunk, a widely used platform for searching, monitoring, and examining machine-generated big data, is an attractive target for cybercriminals due to its extensive use in both small and large organizations. This vulnerability is particularly dangerous because it allows unauthorized users to execute arbitrary code on the system, potentially compromising the integrity, availability, and confidentiality of the system.

Vulnerability Summary

CVE ID: CVE-2025-20229
Severity: High (CVSS: 8.0)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Impact: System Compromise, Potential Data Leakage

Affected Products

Product | Affected Versions

Splunk Enterprise | Versions below 9.3.3, 9.2.5, and 9.1.8
Splunk Cloud Platform | Versions below 9.3.2408.104, 9.2.2406.108, 9.2.2403.114, and 9.1.2312.208

How the Exploit Works

The vulnerability exists due to insufficient authorization checks in the file upload functionality of Splunk. Specifically, the file upload to the “$SPLUNK_HOME/var/run/splunk/apptemp” directory does not properly validate the user’s permission level. Therefore, a low-privileged user, who does not hold the “admin” or “power” Splunk roles, can exploit this vulnerability by uploading a malicious file which can be executed on the server, leading to Remote Code Execution (RCE).

Conceptual Example Code

Here’s a conceptual example of how the vulnerability might be exploited. This example assumes that the attacker has valid credentials for a low-privileged user and is using a crafted file to exploit the vulnerability:

$ curl -X POST -u low_priv_user:password -F 'file=@malicious_file' 'http://target.splunk.com:8000/en-US/splunk/var/run/splunk/apptemp'

In this example, `low_priv_user:password` are the credentials of the low-privileged user, `malicious_file` is the file containing the malicious code, and `target.splunk.com:8000` is the target Splunk server.