CVE-2025-11621 Vault AWS auth method bypass due to AWS client cache

What is CVE-2025-11621?

CVE-2025-11621 is a high-severity authentication bypass vulnerability in Hashicorp Vault, published on 23 Oct 2025. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Vault and Vault Enterprise’s (“Vault”) AWS Auth method may be susceptible to authentication bypass if the role of the configured bound_principal_iam is the same across AWS accounts, or uses a wildcard. This vulnerability, CVE-2025-11621, is fixed in Vault Community Edition 1.21.0 and Vault Enterprise 1.21.0, 1.20.5, 1.19.11, and 1.16.27

Weakness: CWE-288

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-11621?

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-2025-11621?

Upgrade github.com/hashicorp/vault to 1.21.0 or later.

Upgrade, and rotate credentials and sessions that may have been exposed. More about Authentication bypass.

Is CVE-2025-11621 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-11621 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-2025-11621, GHSA-9g4h-h484-3578, GO-2025-4070, MINI-w34j-hg35-wmg4.