OpenBao is Vulnerable to Privileged Operator Identity Group Root Escalation

HighCVE-2025-64761 · Published Nov 24, 2025 · updated Jul 27, 2026

### Impact Similar to HCSEC-2025-13 / CVE-2025-5999, a privileged operator could use the identity group subsystem to add a root policy to a group identity group, escalating their or another user's permissions in the system. Specifically this is an issue when: 1. An operator in the root namespace has access to `identity/groups` endpoints. 2. An operator does not have policy access. Otherwise, an operator with policy access could create or modify an existing policy to grant root-equivalent permissions through the `sudo` capability. ### Patches Patched in version 2.4.4. ### Workarounds Users should audit the use of identity subsystem and deny operators access if it is not in use.