Superuser escalation via writable system keyspaces
Published Aug 25, 2025 · Updated Aug 25, 2025
Privilege escalation in Apache Cassandra 4.0.16 allows remote authenticated users with MODIFY ON ALL KEYSPACES to become superusers. The authorization path treats the all-keyspaces grant as covering protected system keyspaces, allowing writes to system_auth role metadata. Exploitation requires valid cluster credentials with that broad MODIFY grant and yields full administrative control of the targeted cluster.
Summary
What happened
Privilege escalation in Apache Cassandra 4.0.16 allows remote authenticated users with MODIFY ON ALL KEYSPACES to become superusers. The authorization path treats the all-keyspaces grant as covering protected system keyspaces, allowing writes to system_auth role metadata. Exploitation requires valid cluster credentials with that broad MODIFY grant and yields full administrative control of the targeted cluster.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2025-26467
- Published
- Aug 25, 2025
- Updated
- Aug 25, 2025
- Vendor
- The Apache Software Foundation
- Product
- Apache Cassandra
- Classifications
- CWE-267, T1098
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Aug 25, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 25, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
Compare your product and version with the public record. A matching version still requires validation against your environment.
Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=4.0.16
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
See the directory against your own environment.
Your stack
Check the software in your environment
Book a demo to see how Hinoki identifies affected software and validates exploitability in your environment.
Book a demo