CVE-2021-38553 HashiCorp Vault underlying database had excessively broad filesystem permissions from v1.4.0 until v1.8.0

What is CVE-2021-38553?

CVE-2021-38553 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Hashicorp Vault, published on 13 Aug 2021. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

HashiCorp Vault and Vault Enterprise 1.4.0 through 1.7.3 initialized an underlying database file associated with the Integrated Storage feature with excessively broad filesystem permissions. Fixed in Vault and Vault Enterprise 1.8.0.

Weakness: CWE-281

Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-38553?

4 open source packages ship an affected version, including github.com/hashicorp/vault and vault. It affects 1 product.

Products include Hashicorp Vault.

How do I fix CVE-2021-38553?

Upgrade github.com/hashicorp/vault to 1.8.0 or later.

Is CVE-2021-38553 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-38553 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Hashicorp Vault

• CVE-2020-35192 Hardcoded credentials in n/a Critical 9.8
• CVE-2020-12757 Improper Input Validation in HashiCorp Vault Critical 9.8
• CVE-2025-6000 Arbitrary Remote Code Execution via Plugin Catalog Abuse Critical 9.1
• CVE-2022-40186 HashiCorp Vault vulnerable to incorrect metadata access Critical 9.1
• CVE-2022-36129 Missing authorization in n/a Critical 9.1

All Hashicorp Vault vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as BIT-vault-2021-38553, GHSA-23fq-q7hc-993r, GO-2022-0620.