# CVE-2023-27589: Minio vulnerable to denial of access by an admin privileged user for root credential

> An admin user can create a conflicting account to disable root credentials, causing denial of service and potential privilege issues in Minio.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** An administrator
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 14 Mar 2023
- **Updated:** 25 Feb 2025
- **Also known as:** GHSA-9wfv-wmf7-6753

## What is CVE-2023-27589?

CVE-2023-27589 is a medium-severity vulnerability in minio, published on 14 Mar 2023. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Minio is a Multi-Cloud Object Storage framework. Starting with RELEASE.2020-12-23T02-24-12Z and prior to RELEASE.2023-03-13T19-46-17Z, a user with `consoleAdmin` permissions can potentially create a user that matches the root credential `accessKey`. Once this user is created successfully, the root credential ceases to work appropriately. The issue is patched in RELEASE.2023-03-13T19-46-17Z. There are ways to work around this via adding higher privileges to the disabled root user via `mc admin policy set`.

Weakness: CWE-269 (Improper Privilege Management)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-27589?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Minio Minio.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-27589?

No fix has been published for CVE-2023-27589 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2023-27589 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-27589 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in minio

- [CVE-2023-28434](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-28434/): MinIO Security Feature Bypass (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2023-28432](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-28432/): MinIO Information Disclosure (high 7.5, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2020-11012](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-11012/): Authentication bypass MinIO Admin API (critical 9.3)
- [CVE-2026-33322](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-33322/): MinIO: JWT Algorithm Confusion in OIDC Authentication (critical 9.2)
- [CVE-2026-33419](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-33419/): MinIO: LDAP login brute-force via user enumeration and missing rate limit (critical 9.1)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-27589 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-27589 is a medium-severity vulnerability in minio, published on 14 Mar 2023. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-27589 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: minio. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-27589/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-27589/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-27589
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-27589
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-27589

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-27589/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.