CVE-2025-55283: Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in Aiven Database Migration Tool

Overview

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) system has identified a serious security vulnerability in the Aiven database migration tool, aiven-db-migrate. The vulnerability, designated as CVE-2025-55283, is a privilege escalation vulnerability that enables the elevation to superuser inside PostgreSQL databases during a migration from an untrusted source server. The vulnerability is particularly significant because it can lead to potential system compromise or data leakage, two outcomes that can have serious consequences for organizations that rely on the integrity and security of their databases.

Vulnerability Summary

CVE ID: CVE-2025-55283
Severity: Critical (9.1)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Impact: Potential system compromise or data leakage

Affected Products

Product | Affected Versions

aiven-db-migrate | Prior to 1.0.7

How the Exploit Works

The exploit works by taking advantage of the psql’s functionality of executing commands embedded in a dump from the source server. When aiven-db-migrate is used to migrate data from an untrusted source server, it opens up a potential attack vector for privilege escalation. An attacker could embed malicious commands in the dump which will be executed by psql during the migration, potentially leading to the attacker gaining superuser privileges.

Conceptual Example Code

Here’s a conceptual example of how the vulnerability might be exploited. This pseudocode describes the process of creating a dump with a malicious command embedded:

CREATE TABLE malicious_table AS SELECT pg_catalog.pg_ls_dir('..');
COPY (SELECT * FROM malicious_table) TO '/tmp/malicious_dump.sql';

In this pseudocode, a new table is created that executes a command to list the parent directory of the current directory. The output of this command is then copied to a dump file. When this dump is imported during a migration, the command will be executed, potentially leading to privilege escalation.

Mitigation

The vulnerability has been fixed in version 1.0.7 of aiven-db-migrate. Therefore, users are strongly advised to update to this version or later. If updating is not immediately possible, a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can be used as a temporary mitigation measure. These systems can potentially detect and block attempts to exploit this vulnerability.