CVE-2025-65998 Apache Syncope: Default AES key used for internal password encryption

What is CVE-2025-65998?

CVE-2025-65998 is a high-severity vulnerability in Apache Syncope, published on 24 Nov 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Apache Syncope can be configured to store the user password values in the internal database with AES encryption, though this is not the default option.

When AES is configured, the default key value, hard-coded in the source code, is always used. This allows a malicious attacker, once obtained access to the internal database content, to reconstruct the original cleartext password values. This is not affecting encrypted plain attributes, whose values are also stored using AES encryption.

Users are recommended to upgrade to version 3.0.15 / 4.0.3, which fix this issue.

Weakness: CWE-321

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-65998?

4 open source packages ship an affected version, including org.apache.syncope:syncope-core. It affects 1 product.

Products include Apache Syncope.

How do I fix CVE-2025-65998?

Upgrade org.apache.syncope:syncope-core to a fixed version for your release line: 3.0.15 or 4.0.3.

Is CVE-2025-65998 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-65998 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Apache Syncope

• CVE-2026-53405 Apache Syncope: Remote Code Execution via Flowable BPMN Groovy ScriptTask Critical 9.8
• CVE-2026-53421 Apache Syncope: Remote Code Execution via Scripted Connector Critical 9.8
• CVE-2026-57308 Apache Syncope: SQL injection vulnerability in Audit Events search Critical 9.8
• CVE-2026-62183 Apache Syncope: User self-service privilege escalation Critical 9.8
• CVE-2026-63071 Apache Syncope: RCE via Groovy Sandbox bypass Critical 9.8

Sources

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

Also known as GHSA-jqg8-m35q-jh7j.