Privilege escalation in Apache Cassandra

CVE-2025-26467

Privilege Defined With Unsafe Actions vulnerability in Apache Cassandra. An user with MODIFY permission ON ALL KEYSPACES can escalate privileges to superuser within a targeted Cassandra cluster via unsafe actions to a system resource. Operators granting data MODIFY permission on all keyspaces on affected versions should review data access rules for potential breaches. This issue affects Apache Cassandra 3.0.30, 3.11.17, 4.0.16, 4.1.7, 5.0.2, but this advisory is only for 4.0.16 because the fix to CVE-2025-23015 was incorrectly applied to 4.0.16, so that version is still affected. Users in the 4.0 series are recommended to upgrade to version 4.0.17 which fixes the issue. Users from 3.0, 3.11, 4.1 and 5.0 series should follow recommendation from CVE-2025-23015.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 8.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.005 (43.9th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 44th percentile — 43.9% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2025-26467: held from 0.005 to 0.005.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.005 · newest: 0.005 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2025-26467?
CVE-2025-26467 is a high-severity vulnerability in Apache Cassandra, classified under Privilege Defined With Unsafe Actions. CVSS score: 8.8/10. Published 2025-08-25.
How severe is CVE-2025-26467?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.8 out of 10.
Is CVE-2025-26467 known to be exploited?
1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.