Privilege escalation via leaked WebSocket session secrets
Published Oct 2, 2025 · Updated Oct 2, 2025
Privilege escalation in Canonical LXD 6 before 6.5 and 5.21 before 5.21.4 allows remote authenticated users to execute instance commands. The operations API returns terminal and console WebSocket fds secrets to project readers, who can consume a secret before the intended user connects. Exploitation requires project read permission, a higher-privileged user to open a session, and winning the connection race; successful access runs commands with that user's instance privileges.
Summary
What happened
Privilege escalation in Canonical LXD 6 before 6.5 and 5.21 before 5.21.4 allows remote authenticated users to execute instance commands. The operations API returns terminal and console WebSocket fds secrets to project readers, who can consume a secret before the intended user connects. Exploitation requires project read permission, a higher-privileged user to open a session, and winning the connection race; successful access runs commands with that user's instance privileges.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2025-54289
- Published
- Oct 2, 2025
- Updated
- Oct 2, 2025
- Vendor
- Canonical
- Product
- LXD
- Classifications
- CWE-1385, CAPEC-593, T1563
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Oct 2, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Oct 2, 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=5.21 <5.21.4
- Affected versionversion=6 <6.5
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
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.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
- Canonical GHSA WebSocket hijacking reproductionproof of concept · demonstrated
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
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