{"id":69811,"date":"2025-09-02T08:26:46","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T08:26:46","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-09-12T02:15:03","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T08:15:03","slug":"cve-2025-26467-privilege-escalation-vulnerability-in-apache-cassandra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-26467-privilege-escalation-vulnerability-in-apache-cassandra\/","title":{"rendered":"CVE-2025-26467: Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in Apache Cassandra<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n

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<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Vulnerability Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n

CVE ID: CVE-2025-26467
\nSeverity: High – 8.8 (CVSS score)
\nAttack Vector: Network
\nPrivileges Required: Low (MODIFY permission ON ALL KEYSPACES)
\nUser Interaction: None
\nImpact: Successful exploitation could lead to system<\/a> compromise and data leakage<\/p>\n

Affected Products<\/strong><\/p>\n

Product | Affected Versions<\/p>\n

Apache Cassandra | 4.0.16<\/p>\n

How the Exploit Works<\/strong><\/p>\n

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<\/a> escalation. This privilege escalation<\/a> allows the user to acquire superuser privileges within a targeted Cassandra cluster, thereby gaining unrestricted access to all resources on the system.<\/p>\n

Conceptual Example Code<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\/\/ Login with a user having MODIFY permission ON ALL KEYSPACES\nlogin('userWithModifyPermission');\n\/\/ Perform unsafe action leading to privilege escalation\nunsafeAction('systemResource');\n\/\/ Now the user has superuser privileges\nselect * from system_auth.roles where is_superuser = true;<\/code><\/pre>\n
In the above example, ‘unsafeAction’ represents an action that triggers the vulnerability, leading to privilege escalation<\/a>. The final command represents an action that could be executed<\/a> with superuser privileges, such as accessing all superuser roles in the system.<\/p>\n
Mitigation Guidance<\/strong><\/p>\n
Users are recommended to upgrade to Apache<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"vendor":[103],"product":[],"attack_vector":[76],"asset_type":[],"severity":[],"exploit_status":[],"class_list":["post-69811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","vendor-apache","attack_vector-privilege-escalation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t