Vulnerability in Openbao

CVE-2025-55003

OpenBao exists to provide a software solution to manage, store, and distribute sensitive data including secrets, certificates, and keys. In versions 2.3.1 and below, OpenBao's Login Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) system allows enforcing MFA using Time-based One Time Password (TOTP). Due to normalization applied by the underlying TOTP library, codes were accepted which could contain whitespace; this whitespace could bypass internal rate limiting of the MFA method and allow reuse of existing MFA codes. This issue was fixed in version 2.3.2. To work around this, use of rate-limiting quotas can limit an attacker's ability to exploit this: https://openbao.org/api-docs/system/rate-limit-quotas/.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.7 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (13.9th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 14th percentile — 13.9% 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-2025-55003: held from 0.002 to 0.002.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.002 · newest: 0.002 · change: +0.000

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2025-55003?
CVE-2025-55003 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Openbao, classified under Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts. CVSS score: 5.7/10. Published 2025-08-09.
How severe is CVE-2025-55003?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.7 out of 10.