Overview
The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) system has recently identified a critical vulnerability, CVE-2025-6000, within the configuration of Vault, a popular tool used for securing, storing, and controlling access to tokens, passwords, certificates, API keys, and other secrets in modern computing. This security flaw poses a significant risk to privileged Vault operators who have write permission to the {{sys/audit}} within the root namespace, potentially enabling them to execute code on the underlying host if a plugin directory is set in Vault’s configuration.
This vulnerability is of particular concern due to its impact on potential system compromise or data leakage, posing a serious threat to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive data. The severity of the flaw, with a CVSS score of 9.1, emphasizes its critical nature and the urgency with which it must be addressed.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-6000
Severity: Critical – CVSS 9.1
Attack Vector: Local
Privileges Required: High (Vault operator within the root namespace with write permission to {{sys/audit}})
User Interaction: None
Impact: Code execution on the underlying host leading to potential system compromise or data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
Vault Community Edition | Versions prior to 1.20.1
Vault Enterprise | Versions prior to 1.20.1, 1.19.7, 1.18.12, and 1.16.23
How the Exploit Works
This vulnerability arises when a privileged Vault operator within the root namespace has write permission to {{sys/audit}} and a plugin directory is set in Vault’s configuration. This configuration flaw allows the operator to arbitrarily write audit log entries, which can lead to a potential overflow of the audit log. An attacker could exploit this flaw to execute arbitrary code on the underlying host system, thereby compromising the system and potentially leading to data leakage.
Conceptual Example Code
The following conceptual code illustrates how the vulnerability might be exploited.
# Assume the operator has write permission to {{sys/audit}}
vault write sys/audit/file/log_raw true
vault write sys/audit/file/enable true
# The operator can now make arbitrary audit log entries
vault write sys/audit/log/entry data='{"malicious_code":"..."}'The above conceptual example is an oversimplification of the exploit, but it illustrates the overall mechanism of the vulnerability. The actual exploit would likely involve more complex code and manipulation of the system’s internals.
The immediate step to mitigate this vulnerability is to apply the vendor-provided patches or use Web Application Firewalls (WAF) or Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) as temporary mitigation.