OpenBao up to 2.5.3 Kerberos auth method improper authorization

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability has been found in OpenBao up to 2.5.3 and classified as critical. Impacted is an unknown function of the component Kerberos auth method. Performing a manipulation results in improper authorization. This vulnerability is reported as CVE-2026-46405. The attack is possible to be carried out remotely. No exploit exists.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in OpenBao up to 2.5.3. This affects an unknown part of the component Kerberos auth method. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a improper authorization vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-285. The product does not perform or incorrectly performs an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

OpenBao is an open source identity-based secrets management system. Prior to version 2.5.4, in OpenBao's Kerberos auth method on the `GET` handler, or when an `Authorization: Negotiate` header is supplied, the response is includes a `logical.Auth` object in addition to an error message. This results in tokens being created with only the default policy, default TTL, and no entity information, which are hidden by the returned error message. No access to these tokens by the caller occurs and the authentication token is not ever made accessible outside of `sys/raw`. This is fixed in OpenBao v2.5.4. As a workaround, users may set a rate limit quota to limit the creation of these paths. As the path is unauthenticated, it isn't possible to deny access to it.

The advisory is shared at github.com. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2026-46405 since 05/13/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. No form of authentication is needed for exploitation. Neither technical details nor an exploit are publicly available. MITRE ATT&CK project uses the attack technique T1548.002 for this issue.

Upgrading to version 2.5.4 eliminates this vulnerability.

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Productinfo

Name

• OpenBao

Version

• 2.5.0
• 2.5.1
• 2.5.2
• 2.5.3

Website

• Product: https://github.com/openbao/openbao/

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