Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-64761

Openbao ≤ 2.4.4

Published
25 November 2025
Modified
01 December 2025
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v4 7.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:H/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
EPSS Score 0.0035 28th percentile
Risk Priority 55 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-64761 is a high-severity Incorrect Privilege Assignment (CWE-266) vulnerability in Openbao Openbao. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Additional Local or Domain Groups (T1098.007); ranked at the 28th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-6 (Least Privilege) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

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…

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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.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1098.007 Additional Local or Domain Groups Persistence
An adversary may add additional local or domain groups to an adversary-controlled account to maintain persistent access to a system or domain.
Why these techniques?

The vulnerability allows a privileged operator to add a root policy to an identity group via the identity/groups endpoints, directly mapping to modifying group permissions (T1098.007: Additional Local or Domain Groups) to escalate privileges.

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-40264Same product: Openbao Openbao
CVE-2025-62513Same product: Openbao Openbao
CVE-2025-59043Same product: Openbao Openbao
CVE-2025-54999Same product: Openbao Openbao
CVE-2026-42186Same product: Openbao Openbao
CVE-2025-52893Same product: Openbao Openbao
CVE-2025-62705Same product: Openbao Openbao
CVE-2025-55003Same product: Openbao Openbao
CVE-2026-39946Same product: Openbao Openbao
CVE-2025-54997Same product: Openbao Openbao

Affected Assets

openbao
openbao
≤ 2.4.4

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • AC-6 Least Privilege
  • AC-3 Access Enforcement
  • AC-5 Separation of Duties
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 8 hardening rules · 6 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

prevent

Directly prevents assignment of root-equivalent policies to identity groups by enforcing least-privilege restrictions on operators who only have identity/groups access.

prevent

Enforces authorization checks so that adding a root policy via the identity group subsystem cannot succeed without explicit policy-management rights.

prevent

Separates the duties of identity-group management from policy creation/modification, blocking the described escalation path when an operator lacks policy access.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.AA-05 full match
prevents

Directly enforces least-privilege policy definition, management, and review that prevents incorrect privilege assignments.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

prevents

The access-rights control governs the entire lifecycle of privilege assignment, directly eliminating incorrect assignments.

prevents

Privileged-access-rights control explicitly requires least-privilege assignment and ongoing validation, directly mitigating CWE-266.

prevents

Access control policy directly prevents incorrect privilege assignment by defining who may receive which rights.

mitigates

Segregation of duties reduces blast radius of any single incorrect privilege but does not prevent the assignment itself.

mitigates

Restricting privileged utility programs limits exposure from over-privileged accounts but does not address how privileges are assigned.

prevents

Information-access-restriction mechanisms enforce the correct privilege boundaries once assignment rules are defined.

References