Vulnerability · Published Aug 9, 2025 · Assigned by GitHub_M

CVE-2025-55003OpenBao Login MFA Bypasses Rate Limiting and TOTP Token Reuse

Medium 5.7

In plain English

A medium-severity security flaw in openbao from openbao. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.3% (higher than 19% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.

Severity (CVSS 3.1)5.7Medium

Exploit odds (30 days)0.3%top 81.0% of all CVEs

Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: none

Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official description

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/.

Affected packages & fixed versions

Ecosystem	Package	Fixed in	Advisory
Alpine:v3.22	openbao	2.3.2-r0	ALPINE-CVE-2025-55003
Alpine:v3.23	openbao	2.3.2-r0	ALPINE-CVE-2025-55003
Alpine:v3.24	openbao	2.3.2-r0	ALPINE-CVE-2025-55003
Go	github.com/openbao/openbao	2.3.2	GHSA-rxp7-9q75-vj3p
Go	github.com/openbao/openbao	0.0.0-20250807113757-8340a6918f6c	GHSA-rxp7-9q75-vj3p
Go	github.com/openbao/openbao	0.0.0-20250807113757-8340a6918f6c	GO-2025-3856

Affected products (as reported)

Vendor	Product	Versions
openbao	openbao	< 2.3.2

Weakness: CWE-307 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

References

https://github.com/openbao/openbao/security/advisories/GHSA-rxp7-9q75-vj3p x_refsource_CONFIRM
https://github.com/openbao/openbao/commit/8340a6918f6c41d8f75b6c3845c376d9dc32ed19 x_refsource_MISC
https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/hcsec-2025-19-vault-login-mfa-bypass-of-rate-limiting-and-totp-token-reuse/76038 x_refsource_MISC