CVE-2025-6000 Arbitrary Remote Code Execution via Plugin Catalog Abuse

What is CVE-2025-6000?

CVE-2025-6000 is a critical code injection vulnerability in Hashicorp Vault, published on 1 Aug 2025. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.

Official description

A privileged Vault operator within the root namespace with write permission to {{sys/audit}} may obtain code execution on the underlying host if a plugin directory is set in Vault’s configuration. Fixed in Vault Community Edition 1.20.1 and Vault Enterprise 1.20.1, 1.19.7, 1.18.12, and 1.16.23.

Weakness: CWE-94

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-6000?

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-2025-6000?

Upgrade github.com/hashicorp/vault to 1.20.1 or later.

Upgrade, and never evaluate templates, expressions or code built from user input. More about Code injection.

Is CVE-2025-6000 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-6000 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-2022-40186 HashiCorp Vault vulnerable to incorrect metadata access Critical 9.1
• CVE-2022-36129 Missing authorization in n/a Critical 9.1
• CVE-2020-10661 HashiCorp Vault Improper Privilege Management Critical 9.1

All Hashicorp Vault vulnerabilities

Sources

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

Also known as BIT-vault-2025-6000, CLEANSTART-2026-BI76968, GHSA-mr4h-qf9j-f665, GO-2025-3838, MINI-hp3v-jh88-v63v.