Vulnerability · Published Aug 25, 2025 · Assigned by apache

CVE-2025-26467Apache Cassandra: User with MODIFY permission on ALL KEYSPACES can escalate privileges to superuser via unsafe actions (4.0.16 only)

High 8.8

In plain English

A high-severity security flaw in Apache Cassandra from Apache Software Foundation. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.5% (higher than 44% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.

Severity (CVSS 3.1)8.8High

Exploit odds (30 days)0.5%top 56.0% of all CVEs

Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: none

Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official description

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.

Affected packages & fixed versions

Ecosystem	Package	Fixed in	Advisory
Maven	org.apache.cassandra:cassandra-all	4.0.17	GHSA-5c4f-pxmx-xcm4

Affected products (as reported)

Vendor	Product	Versions
Apache Software Foundation	Apache Cassandra	4.0.16

Weakness: CWE-267 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

References

https://lists.apache.org/thread/xxj36rr4d6mzyqpld05dn8b9951hfpz7 vendor-advisory