CVE-2025-55213

Critical

Published: 18 August 2025

Published

18 August 2025

Modified

14 January 2026

KEV Added

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Patch

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CVSS Score 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS Score 0.0010 27.7th percentile

Risk Priority 20 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2025-55213 is a critical-severity Incorrect Authorization (CWE-863) vulnerability in Openfga Helm Charts. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 27.7th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 AC-25 (Reference Monitor) and AC-3 (Access Enforcement).

Threat & Defense at a Glance

What attackers do: exploitation maps to Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190) and 1 other technique. What defenders deploy: see the NIST 800-53 controls recommended below.

Threat & Defense Details

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI

AC-3 Access Enforcement good match

prevent

Requires enforcement of approved authorizations in accordance with access control policies, directly countering the improper policy enforcement during OpenFGA Check and ListObject calls.

AC-25 Reference Monitor good match

prevent

Mandates a reference monitor to enforce access control policies, providing robust mediation against authorization bypasses in engines like OpenFGA.

SI-2 Flaw Remediation good match

prevent

Ensures timely identification, reporting, and correction of flaws like the one in OpenFGA v1.9.3-v1.9.4, preventing exploitation via patching to v1.9.5.

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access

Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.

attack.mitre.org →

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation

Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.

attack.mitre.org →

Why these techniques?

Improper policy enforcement in network-accessible OpenFGA service enables remote bypass of authorization checks, directly facilitating exploitation of public-facing apps for unauthorized access/privilege escalation.

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v18.1

NVD Description

OpenFGA is a high-performance and flexible authorization/permission engine built for developers and inspired by Google Zanzibar. OpenFGA v1.9.3 to v1.9.4 ( openfga-0.2.40 <= Helm chart <= openfga-0.2.41, v1.9.3 <= docker <= v.1.9.4) are vulnerable to improper policy enforcement when certain…

Check and ListObject calls are executed. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.9.5.

Deeper analysisAI

CVE-2025-55213 is an improper policy enforcement vulnerability (CWE-863) affecting OpenFGA, a high-performance authorization and permission engine inspired by Google Zanzibar. The issue impacts OpenFGA versions v1.9.3 through v1.9.4, including Helm chart releases from openfga-0.2.40 to openfga-0.2.41 and Docker images from v1.9.3 to v1.9.4. It arises during execution of specific Check and ListObject calls, allowing authorization policies to be bypassed.

Remote attackers require no privileges or user interaction to exploit this vulnerability over the network with low complexity, as indicated by its CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H). Successful exploitation enables high-impact compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability, potentially permitting unauthorized access, modification, or disruption of authorization decisions within OpenFGA deployments.

The vulnerability is addressed in OpenFGA version 1.9.5. Official mitigation guidance is available in the GitHub security advisory (GHSA-mgh9-4mwp-fg55) and the fixing commit (1a7e0e37fc4777c824b2386cac4867a66f3480b0), which practitioners should review for upgrade instructions and verification steps.