OpenBao is an open source identity-based secrets management system. In OpenBao versions prior to 2.4.1, JSON objects after decoding may use significantly more memory than their serialized version. It is possible to craft a JSON payload to maximize the factor between serialized memory usage and deserialized memory usage, similar to a zip bomb, with factors reaching approximately 35. This can be used to circumvent the max_request_size configuration parameter which is intended to protect against denial of service attacks. The request body is parsed into a map very early in the request handling chain before authentication, which means an unauthenticated attacker can send a specifically crafted JSON object and cause an out-of-memory crash. Additionally, for requests with large numbers of strings, the audit subsystem can consume large quantities of CPU. The vulnerability is fixed in version 2.4.1.
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Advisories
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GHSA-g46h-2rq9-gw5m | OpenBao has potential Denial of Service vulnerability when processing malicious unauthenticated JSON requests |
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Solution
No solution given by the vendor.
Workaround
No workaround given by the vendor.
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History
Fri, 17 Oct 2025 18:15:00 +0000
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Fri, 17 Oct 2025 16:15:00 +0000
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Description | OpenBao is an open source identity-based secrets management system. In OpenBao versions prior to 2.4.1, JSON objects after decoding may use significantly more memory than their serialized version. It is possible to craft a JSON payload to maximize the factor between serialized memory usage and deserialized memory usage, similar to a zip bomb, with factors reaching approximately 35. This can be used to circumvent the max_request_size configuration parameter which is intended to protect against denial of service attacks. The request body is parsed into a map very early in the request handling chain before authentication, which means an unauthenticated attacker can send a specifically crafted JSON object and cause an out-of-memory crash. Additionally, for requests with large numbers of strings, the audit subsystem can consume large quantities of CPU. The vulnerability is fixed in version 2.4.1. | |
Title | OpenBao vulnerable to denial of service via malicious JSON request processing | |
Weaknesses | CWE-400 | |
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cvssV3_1
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Status: PUBLISHED
Assigner: GitHub_M
Published:
Updated: 2025-10-17T17:22:52.795Z
Reserved: 2025-09-08T16:19:26.171Z
Link: CVE-2025-59043

Updated: 2025-10-17T17:22:42.790Z

Status : Received
Published: 2025-10-17T16:15:38.763
Modified: 2025-10-17T16:15:38.763
Link: CVE-2025-59043

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