Vault unauthenticated denial of service through complex json payload

Summary

CVECVE-2025-6203
StatePUBLISHED
AssignerHashiCorp
Source PriorityCVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published2025-08-28 20:15:43 UTC
Updated2026-09-26 00:10:00 UTC
DescriptionA malicious user may submit a specially-crafted complex payload that otherwise meets the default request size limit which results in excessive memory and CPU consumption of Vault. This may lead to a timeout in Vault’s auditing subroutine, potentially resulting in the Vault server to become unresponsive. This vulnerability, CVE-2025-6203, is fixed in Vault Community Edition 1.20.3 and Vault Enterprise 1.20.3, 1.19.9, 1.18.14, and 1.16.25.

Risk And Classification

Primary CVSS: v3.1 7.5 HIGH from [email protected]

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

Problem Types: CWE-770 | CWE-770 CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling


VersionSourceTypeScoreSeverityVector
3.1[email protected]Secondary7.5HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
3.1CNACVSS7.5HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CVSS v3.1 Breakdown

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

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

NVD Known Affected Configurations (CPE 2.3)

TypeVendorProductVersionUpdateEditionLanguage
Application Hashicorp Vault All All All All
Application Hashicorp Vault All All All All

Vendor Declared Affected Products

SourceVendorProductVersionPlatforms
CNA HashiCorp Vault affected 1.15.0 1.21.0 semver 64 bit, 32 bit, x86, ARM, MacOS, Windows, Linux
CNA HashiCorp Vault Enterprise affected 1.15.0 1.21.2 semver 64 bit, 32 bit, x86, ARM, MacOS, Windows, Linux

References

ReferenceSourceLinkTags
discuss.hashicorp.com/t/hcsec-2025-24-vault-denial-of-service-though-complex-json-p... [email protected] discuss.hashicorp.com Vendor Advisory
CVE Program record CVE.ORG www.cve.org canonical
NVD vulnerability detail NVD nvd.nist.gov canonical, analysis

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