CVE-2025-59043
OpenBao is an open source identity-based secrets management system. In OpenBao versions prior to 2.4.1, JSON objects after decoding may use significantly more memory than their serialized version. It is possible to craft a JSON payload to maximize the factor between serialized memory usage and deserialized memory usage, similar to a zip bomb, with factors reaching approximately 35. This can be used to circumvent the max_request_size configuration parameter which is intended to protect against denial of service attacks. The request body is parsed into a map very early in the request handling chain before authentication, which means an unauthenticated attacker can send a specifically crafted JSON object and cause an out-of-memory crash. Additionally, for requests with large numbers of strings, the audit subsystem can consume large quantities of CPU. The vulnerability is fixed in version 2.4.1.
- CVSS 3.1
- 7.5
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H - EPSS
- 0.7% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days; higher than 52% of CVEs (scores of 2026-10-25)
- CWE
- CWE-400
- Published
- Modified
- Record from
- the NVD, synced
Affected
- openbao:openbao
Packages (OSV)
| Advisory | Ecosystem | Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GHSA-g46h-2rq9-gw5m | Go | github.com/openbao/openbao | <2.4.1 | 2.4.1 |
| GO-2025-4039 | Go | github.com/openbao/openbao | all versions | no fix published |
References
- https://github.com/openbao/openbao/blob/788536bd3e10818a7b4fb00aac6affc23388e5a9/http/logical.go#L50
- https://github.com/openbao/openbao/commit/d418f238bc99adc72c73109faf574cc2b672880c
- https://github.com/openbao/openbao/pull/1756
- https://github.com/openbao/openbao/security/advisories/GHSA-g46h-2rq9-gw5m