OpenBao AWS Plugin Vulnerable to Cross-Account IAM Role Impersonation in AWS Auth Method

CISA KEV is observed exploitation evidence. FIRST EPSS is a dated prediction of exploitation in the next 30 days. Missing scores are unknown. This collector requests predictions only for explicit CVE aliases in the public NuGet archive; Microsoft release views retain their existing prediction scope.

No collected risk observation for these identifiers. This does not establish absence of exploitation or a zero probability.

OpenBao's AWS Plugin generates AWS access credentials based on IAM policies. Prior to version 0.1.1, the AWS Plugin is vulnerable to cross-account IAM role Impersonation in the AWS auth method. The vulnerability allows an IAM role from an untrusted AWS account to authenticate by impersonating a role with the same name in a trusted account, leading to unauthorized access. This impacts all users of the auth-aws plugin who operate in a multi-account AWS environment where IAM role names may not be unique across accounts. This vulnerability has been patched in version 0.1.1 of the auth-aws plugin. A workaround for this issue involves guaranteeing that IAM role names are unique across all AWS accounts that could potentially interact with your OpenBao environment, and to audit for any duplicate IAM roles.

Source published

23 Oct 2025 15:09:06 UTC

Source modified

23 Oct 2025 15:40:48 UTC

Observed here

23 Oct 2026 15:48:27 UTC

Source terms

CVE Program Terms of Use

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CVSS 3.1 · 8.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

OpenBao's AWS Plugin generates AWS access credentials based on IAM policies. Prior to version 0.1.1, the AWS Plugin is vulnerable to cross-account IAM role Impersonation in the AWS auth method. The vulnerability allows an IAM role from an untrusted AWS account to authenticate by impersonating a role with the same name in a trusted account, leading to unauthorized access. This impacts all users of the auth-aws plugin who operate in a multi-account AWS environment where IAM role names may not be unique across accounts. This vulnerability has been patched in version 0.1.1 of the auth-aws plugin. A workaround for this issue involves guaranteeing that IAM role names are unique across all AWS accounts that could potentially interact with your OpenBao environment, and to audit for any duplicate IAM roles.

Source published

Oct 23, 2025, 3:09:06 PM (timezone not stated)

Source modified

Oct 23, 2025, 3:40:48 PM (timezone not stated)

Observed here

11 Nov 2026 03:37:26 UTC

Source terms

ENISA EUVD · source terms and attribution apply

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EUVD CVSS 3.1 · 8.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

OpenBao's AWS Plugin generates AWS access credentials based on IAM policies. Prior to version 0.1.1, the AWS Plugin is vulnerable to cross-account IAM role Impersonation in the AWS auth method. The vulnerability allows an IAM role from an untrusted AWS account to authenticate by impersonating a role with the same name in a trusted account, leading to unauthorized access. This impacts all users of the auth-aws plugin who operate in a multi-account AWS environment where IAM role names may not be unique across accounts. This vulnerability has been patched in version 0.1.1 of the auth-aws plugin. A workaround for this issue involves guaranteeing that IAM role names are unique across all AWS accounts that could potentially interact with your OpenBao environment, and to audit for any duplicate IAM roles.

Source published

23 Oct 2025 16:16:43 UTC

Source modified

8 Oct 2026 11:10:00 UTC

Observed here

25 Oct 2026 03:17:18 UTC

Source terms

NIST NVD usage terms; underlying source attribution retained

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CVSS 3.1 · [email protected] · Secondary · 8.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

### Impact This is a cross-account impersonation vulnerability in the `auth-aws` plugin. The vulnerability allows an IAM role from an untrusted AWS account to authenticate by impersonating a role with the **same name** in a trusted account, leading to unauthorized access. This impacts all users of the `auth-aws` plugin who operate in a multi-account AWS environment where IAM role names may not be unique across accounts. The core of the vulnerability is a flawed caching mechanism that fails to validate the AWS Account ID during authentication. While the use of wildcards in a `bound_iam_principal_arn configuration` significantly increases the attack surface, **wildcards are not a prerequisite for exploitation**. The vulnerability can be exploited with specific ARN bindings if a role name collision occurs. Successful exploitation can lead to unauthorized access to secrets, data exfiltration, and privilege escalation. Given that the only prerequisite is a duplicate role name, the severity is considered **high**. ### Patches This vulnerability has been patched in version **0.1.1** of the `auth-aws` plugin. Users are advised to upgrade to version **0.1.1** or later to remediate this vulnerability. ### Workarounds For users who are unable to upgrade to version **0.1.1** immediately, the most effective workaround is to **guarantee that IAM role names are unique across all AWS accounts** that could potentially interact with your OpenBao environment. This is the most critical mitigation step. **Primary Mitigation**: Audit your AWS organizations to identify and rename any duplicate IAM role names. Enforce a naming convention that includes account-specific identifiers to prevent future collisions. While removing wildcards from your `bound_iam_principal_arn` configuration is still recommended as a security best practice, it **will not** mitigate this vulnerability if duplicate role names exist. ### Credits This vulnerability was discovered and reported by [Pavlos Karakalidis](https://github.com/pkarakal/)

Source published

23 Oct 2025 16:01:27 UTC

Source modified

5 Nov 2025 19:57:32 UTC

Observed here

24 Oct 2026 13:19:41 UTC

Source terms

GitHub Advisory Database · CC-BY-4.0

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CVSS_V3 · CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

Publisher rating · HIGH

OpenBao AWS Plugin Vulnerable to Cross-Account IAM Role Impersonation in AWS Auth Method in github.com/openbao/openbao-plugins. NOTE: The source advisory for this report contains additional versions that could not be automatically mapped to standard Go module versions. (If this is causing false-positive reports from vulnerability scanners, please suggest an edit to the report.) The additional affected modules and versions are: github.com/openbao/openbao-plugins before v0.1.1.

Source published

30 Oct 2025 15:02:33 UTC

Source modified

5 Nov 2025 19:57:32 UTC

Observed here

24 Oct 2026 13:19:41 UTC

Source terms

OSV · upstream source license applies

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This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: osv · OSV · upstream source license applies. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.