Overview
In this blog post, we are going to delve into a critical vulnerability, CVE-2025-26467, found in the popular open-source database management system, Apache Cassandra. This vulnerability pertains particularly to a Privilege Defined With Unsafe Actions vulnerability, which could potentially allow an attacker to escalate privileges to superuser within a target Cassandra cluster. This could lead to a system compromise or data leakage, presenting a significant risk to affected organizations. The severity of this issue is underscored by its high CVSS severity score of 8.8.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-26467
Severity: High – 8.8 (CVSS score)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: Low (MODIFY permission ON ALL KEYSPACES)
User Interaction: None
Impact: Successful exploitation could lead to system compromise and data leakage
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Product | Affected Versions
Apache Cassandra | 4.0.16
How the Exploit Works
The exploit takes advantage of the fact that a user with MODIFY permission ON ALL KEYSPACES can execute unsafe actions on a system resource, leading to a privilege escalation. This privilege escalation allows the user to acquire superuser privileges within a targeted Cassandra cluster, thereby gaining unrestricted access to all resources on the system.
Conceptual Example Code
Here is a conceptual example of how the vulnerability might be exploited. Note that this is purely hypothetical and is provided only to help understand the nature of the vulnerability.
// Login with a user having MODIFY permission ON ALL KEYSPACES
login('userWithModifyPermission');
// Perform unsafe action leading to privilege escalation
unsafeAction('systemResource');
// Now the user has superuser privileges
select * from system_auth.roles where is_superuser = true;In the above example, ‘unsafeAction’ represents an action that triggers the vulnerability, leading to privilege escalation. The final command represents an action that could be executed with superuser privileges, such as accessing all superuser roles in the system.
Mitigation Guidance
Users are recommended to upgrade to Apache Cassandra 4.0.17 where this issue has been fixed. For users unable to immediately upgrade, applying a vendor patch or using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can serve as temporary mitigation measures. However, these are not long-term solutions and upgrading to a patched version is strongly recommended.