CVE-2025-6000 — vault
CRITICALCVE-2025-6000 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.1) Code Injection vulnerability in github.com/hashicorp/vault. A fix is available for github.com/hashicorp/vault — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Arbitrary Remote Code Execution via Plugin Catalog Abuse
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- 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-2025-6000.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
github.com/hashicorp/vaultReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
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.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/hashicorp/vault | ≥ 0.8.0&&< 1.20.1 | 1.20.1go get github.com/hashicorp/vault@v1.20.1 |
Affected Products
vaulthashicorpDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/hashicorp/vault, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/hashicorp/vault to 1.20.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2025-6000 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
The impact has been set to Important rather than Critical as this vulnerability requires a privileged user with write access to sys/audit in the root namespace. The execution also requires the SHA256 digest of the target file, which makes the attack complexity high. However, a malicious operator can possibly reproduce…
No mitigation is currently available that meets Red Hat Product Security’s standards for usability, deployment, applicability, or stability.Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2025-6000 (CC BY 4.0)
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2025-6000 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.