Openbao: Security Vulnerabilities
OpenBao is an open source identity-based secrets management system. Prior to version 2.5.3, OpenBao's Certificate authentication method, when a token renewal is requested and `disable_binding=true` is set, attempts to verify the current request's presented mTLS certificate matches the original. Token renewals for other authentication methods do not require any supplied login information. Due to incorrect matching, the certificate authentication method would allow renewal of tokens for which the attacker had a sibling certificate+key signed by the same CA, but which did not necessarily match the original role or the originally supplied certificate. This implies an attacker could still authenticate to OpenBao in a similar scope, however, token renewal implies that an attacker may be able to extend the lifetime of dynamic leases held by the original token. This attack requires knowledge of either the original token or its accessor. This vulnerability is original from HashiCorp Vault. This is addressed in v2.5.3. As a workaround, ensure privileged roles are tightly scoped to single certificates.
CVSS Score
2.0
EPSS Score
0.0
Published
2026-04-21
OpenBao is an open source identity-based secrets management system. Prior to version 2.5.3, when OpenBao revoked privileges on a role in the PostgreSQL database secrets engine, OpenBao failed to use proper database quoting on schema names provided by PostgreSQL. This could lead to role revocation failures, or more rarely, SQL injection as the management user. This vulnerability was original from HashiCorp Vault. The vulnerability is addressed in v2.5.3. As a workaround, audit table schemas and ensure database users cannot create new schemas and grant privileges on them.
CVSS Score
4.6
EPSS Score
0.0
Published
2026-04-21
OpenBao is an open source identity-based secrets management system. OpenBao's namespaces provide multi-tenant separation. Prior to version 2.5.3, a tenant who leaks token accessors can have their token revoked or renewed by a privileged administrator in another tenant. This is addressed in v2.5.3.
CVSS Score
2.0
EPSS Score
0.0
Published
2026-04-21
OpenBao is an open source identity-based secrets management system. Prior to version 2.5.2, OpenBao does not prompt for user confirmation when logging in via JWT/OIDC and a role with `callback_mode` set to `direct`. This allows an attacker to start an authentication request and perform "remote phishing" by having the victim visit the URL and automatically log-in to the session of the attacker. Despite being based on the authorization code flow, the `direct` mode calls back directly to the API and allows an attacker to poll for an OpenBao token until it is issued. Version 2.5.2 includes an additional confirmation screen for `direct` type logins that requires manual user interaction in order to finish the authentication. This issue can be worked around either by removing any roles with `callback_mode=direct` or enforcing confirmation for every session on the token issuer side for the Client ID used by OpenBao.
CVSS Score
9.6
EPSS Score
0.0
Published
2026-03-27
OpenBao is an open source identity-based secrets management system. Prior to version 2.5.2, OpenBao installations that have an OIDC/JWT authentication method enabled and a role with `callback_mode=direct` configured are vulnerable to XSS via the `error_description` parameter on the page for a failed authentication. This allows an attacker access to the token used in the Web UI by a victim. The `error_description` parameter has been replaced with a static error message in v2.5.2. The vulnerability can be mitigated by removing any roles with `callback_mode` set to `direct`.
CVSS Score
9.4
EPSS Score
0.001
Published
2026-03-27
OpenBao is an open source identity-based secrets management system. Prior to version 2.4.4, a privileged operator could use the identity group subsystem to add a root policy to a group identity group, escalating their or another user's permissions in the system. Specifically this is an issue when: an operator in the root namespace has access to identity/groups endpoints and an operator does not have policy access. Otherwise, an operator with policy access could create or modify an existing policy to grant root-equivalent permissions through the sudo capability. This issue has been patched in version 2.4.4.
CVSS Score
7.5
EPSS Score
0.0
Published
2025-11-25
OpenBao's AWS Plugin generates AWS access credentials based on IAM policies. Prior to version 0.1.1, the AWS Plugin is vulnerable to cross-account IAM role Impersonation in the AWS auth method. The vulnerability allows an IAM role from an untrusted AWS account to authenticate by impersonating a role with the same name in a trusted account, leading to unauthorized access. This impacts all users of the auth-aws plugin who operate in a multi-account AWS environment where IAM role names may not be unique across accounts. This vulnerability has been patched in version 0.1.1 of the auth-aws plugin. A workaround for this issue involves guaranteeing that IAM role names are unique across all AWS accounts that could potentially interact with your OpenBao environment, and to audit for any duplicate IAM roles.
CVSS Score
8.1
EPSS Score
0.0
Published
2025-10-23
OpenBao is an open source identity-based secrets management system. Prior to version 2.4.2, OpenBao's audit log did not appropriately redact fields when relevant subsystems sent []byte response parameters rather than strings. This includes, but is not limited to sys/raw with use of encoding=base64, all data would be emitted unredacted to the audit log, and Transit, when performing a signing operation with a derived Ed25519 key, would emit public keys to the audit log. This issue has been patched in OpenBao 2.4.2.
CVSS Score
5.7
EPSS Score
0.0
Published
2025-10-22
OpenBao is an open source identity-based secrets management system. In versions 2.2.0 to 2.4.1, OpenBao's audit log experienced a regression wherein raw HTTP bodies used by few endpoints were not correctly redacted (HMAC'd). This impacts those using the ACME functionality of PKI, resulting in short-lived ACME verification challenge codes being leaked in the audit logs. Additionally, this impacts those using the OIDC issuer functionality of the identity subsystem, auth and token response codes along with claims could be leaked in the audit logs. ACME verification codes are not usable after verification or challenge expiry so are of limited long-term use. This issue has been patched in OpenBao 2.4.2.
CVSS Score
5.7
EPSS Score
0.0
Published
2025-10-22
OpenBao is an open source identity-based secrets management system. In OpenBao versions prior to 2.4.1, JSON objects after decoding may use significantly more memory than their serialized version. It is possible to craft a JSON payload to maximize the factor between serialized memory usage and deserialized memory usage, similar to a zip bomb, with factors reaching approximately 35. This can be used to circumvent the max_request_size configuration parameter which is intended to protect against denial of service attacks. The request body is parsed into a map very early in the request handling chain before authentication, which means an unauthenticated attacker can send a specifically crafted JSON object and cause an out-of-memory crash. Additionally, for requests with large numbers of strings, the audit subsystem can consume large quantities of CPU. The vulnerability is fixed in version 2.4.1.
CVSS Score
7.5
EPSS Score
0.002
Published
2025-10-17
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