CVE-2025-8904 Privilege escalation issue in Amazon EMR Secret Agent component
A local user can escalate privileges by accessing Kerberos credentials stored in a world-readable temporary directory within Amazon EMR.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2025-8904?
CVE-2025-8904 is a critical vulnerability in Amazon EMR, published on 13 Aug 2025. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
Amazon EMR Secret Agent creates a keytab file containing Kerberos credentials. This file is stored in the /tmp/ directory. A user with access to this directory and another account can potentially decrypt the keys and escalate to higher privileges.
Users are advised to upgrade to Amazon EMR version 7.5 or higher. For Amazon EMR releases between 6.10 and 7.4, we strongly recommend that you run the bootstrap script and RPM files with the fix provided in the location below.
Weakness: CWE-257
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-8904?
How do I fix CVE-2025-8904?
No fix has been published for CVE-2025-8904 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2025-8904 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-8904 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-hf8h-76fm-735v.