CVE-2025-59048 OpenBao AWS Plugin Vulnerable to Cross-Account IAM Role Impersonation in AWS Auth Method
Attackers can impersonate trusted IAM roles from untrusted accounts to gain unauthorized access to OpenBao secrets in multi-account AWS environments.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2025-59048?
CVE-2025-59048 is a high-severity authentication bypass vulnerability in openbao-plugins, published on 23 Oct 2025. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
OpenBao's AWS Plugin generates AWS access credentials based on IAM policies. Prior to version 0.1.1, the AWS Plugin is vulnerable to cross-account IAM role Impersonation in the AWS auth method. The vulnerability allows an IAM role from an untrusted AWS account to authenticate by impersonating a role with the same name in a trusted account, leading to unauthorized access. This impacts all users of the auth-aws plugin who operate in a multi-account AWS environment where IAM role names may not be unique across accounts. This vulnerability has been patched in version 0.1.1 of the auth-aws plugin. A workaround for this issue involves guaranteeing that IAM role names are unique across all AWS accounts that could potentially interact with your OpenBao environment, and to audit for any duplicate IAM roles.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-59048?
3 open source packages ship an affected version, including github.com/openbao/openbao-plugins. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
github.com/openbao/openbao-plugins Go | All versions | None |
github.com/openbao/openbao-plugins Go | All versions | 0.1.1 |
github.com/openbao/openbao-plugins Go | All versions | 0.1.1 |
Products include Openbao Aws Plugin.
How do I fix CVE-2025-59048?
Upgrade github.com/openbao/openbao-plugins to 0.1.1 or later.
Upgrade, and rotate credentials and sessions that may have been exposed. More about Authentication bypass.
Is CVE-2025-59048 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-59048 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-jp7h-4f3c-9rc7, GO-2025-4067.