Description

OpenBao is Vulnerable to Privileged Operator Identity Group Root Escalation

Impact

Similar to HCSEC-2025-13 / CVE-2025-5999, 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.

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.

Patches

Patched in version 2.4.4.

Workarounds

Users should audit the use of identity subsystem and deny operators access if it is not in use.

Mitigation

Aliases

References