CVE-2025-55449 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.3) CWE-321 vulnerability in astrbot. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for astrbot — see the affected versions and patch details below.
AstrBot is vulnerable to RCE with hard-coded JWT signing keys
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2025-55449.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2025-55449 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 378,567 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
astrbotReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Summary
AstrBot uses a hard-coded JWT signing key, allowing attackers to execute arbitrary commands by installing a malicious plugin.
Details
AstrBot uses a hard-coded JWT signing key, which allows attackers to bypass the authentication mechanism. Once bypassed, the attacker can install a Python plugin that will be imported here, enabling arbitrary command execution on the target host.
Impact
All publicly accessible AstrBot instances are vulnerable.
For more information, please see: CVE-2025-55449-AstrBot-RCE
Patch
This vulnerability was first reported on 2025-06-21 and was patched on the same day (2025-06-21).
The vulnerability was publicly disclosed on 2025-11-14. Prior to public disclosure, monitoring from AstrBot Cloud indicated that fewer than 2% of deployed instances were still running the affected version. Therefore, this disclosure is not expected to have a significant impact on existing active instances.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | astrbot | all versions | 3.5.18pip install --upgrade 'astrbot==3.5.18' |
Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for astrbot, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update astrbot to 3.5.18 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2025-55449 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2025-55449 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2025-55449. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2025-55449 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2025-55449 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.