Know every vulnerabilitybefore it knows you.
DevGuard continuously monitors your dependencies and alerts you when CVEs like this one affect your stack — with real-time threat intelligence built for developers.
GHSA-59w7-v8rr-pr4p
github.com/openbao/openbaogithub.com/openbao/openbaoImpact
ACL Policies
OpenBao supports "templated polices": Policies with placeholders that are replaced at evaluation time.
This allows you to write a single policy which e.g. grants user "alice" access to all entries in a key value engine prefixed with alice/ while granting "bob" access to bob/, "carol" access to carol/, etc.
If the data used in the template can be controlled by an attacker (e.g. your system allows the user to freely select their username) and "globbing" characters are considered valid ( e.g. * is a valid username) they will be able to escalate their privileges.
The problematic characters are *, + and /.
PKI Secrets Engine allowed_uri_sans_template and allowed_domains Polices
The PKI secrets engine allows you to limit the "common names" a user can requests a TLS certificate for. Similar to the ACL polices this allows you to restrict e.g. "alice" to alice.example.com, "bob" to bob.example.com, etc. via templates.
Again, if an attacker can control this data freely, they can trick the PKI engine into using e.g. the *.example.com glob effectively allowing them to issue certificates for any subdomain of example.com
The problematic character in this case is *.
SSH Secrets Engine allowed_users and allowed_domains Polices
The SSH secrets engine allows you to limit the "principal" a user can request as SSH certificate for. Similar to ACL and PKI, this allows templates.
The problematic character in this case is , as the template result is split at all commas and each entry will be allowed.
Am I affected?
You are affected, if a) you use a templated policy (ACL, PKI or SSH) and b) your users can modify data used by your template freely.
If you can guarantee that the data used in your templates will never contain the problematic characters, you are not affected. For example, if you use {{ identity.entity.id }} in your policy, you are not affected, because identity.entity.id is randomly generated by OpenBao.
Even with this vulnerability patched: Using user controllable data in your policies is probably not the best idea.
Patches
All three have been patched in OpenBao v2.6.0.
Upload your own SBOM in CycloneDX 1.6 or higher (JSON) directly here to check your vulnerabilities.
Drag and drop some file here, or click to select
The vulnerability can be exploited over the network without needing physical access. It is easy for an attacker to exploit this vulnerability. An attacker needs high-level or administrative privileges. No user interaction is needed for the attacker to exploit this vulnerability.
Exploitation attempts have been detected. Elevated vigilance and prompt remediation are advised.
The exploit probability is very low. The vulnerability is unlikely to be exploited in the next 30 days.
We did not find any exploit available. Neither in GitHub repositories nor in the Exploit-Database.
Browse More
Continuously monitor your dependencies and get alerted when vulnerabilities like this one affect your stack.
Checkout DevGuard