Apache Cassandra: User with MODIFY permission on ALL KEYSPACES can escalate privileges to superuser via unsafe actions

CVE-2025-23015 → View on GitHub ↗ View on CVE.org ↗ View on NVD ↗

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 through 3.0.30, 3.11.17, 4.0.15, 4.1.7, 5.0.2.

Users are recommended to upgrade to versions 3.0.31, 3.11.18, 4.0.16, 4.1.8, 5.0.3, which fixes the issue.

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
high
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
—
Source code
Browse source ↗
Published (advisory)
2025-02-04 12:30:59 UTC
Updated
2025-02-18 22:30:55 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2025-02-04 18:32:00 UTC
NVD published
2025-02-04

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.41% 60.84%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
8.8 3.1 —
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.

Identifiers

Type Value
GHSA GHSA-wmcc-9vch-jmx4 ↗
CVE CVE-2025-23015 ↗

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-267 Privilege Defined With Unsafe Actions

Affected packages (5)

Vulnerable version ranges and first patched releases as published by GitHub.

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
maven org.apache.cassandra:cassandra-all >= 5.0-alpha1, < 5.0.3 5.0.3 —
maven org.apache.cassandra:cassandra-all >= 4.1-alpha1, < 4.1.8 4.1.8 —
maven org.apache.cassandra:cassandra-all >= 4.0-alpha1, < 4.0.16 4.0.16 —
maven org.apache.cassandra:cassandra-all >= 3.1, < 3.11.18 3.11.18 —
maven org.apache.cassandra:cassandra-all < 3.0.31 3.0.31 —

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence