CVE-2026-63131
Received Received - Intake

Path Traversal in OpenBao Secrets Manager

Publication date: 2026-09-23

Last updated on: 2026-09-23

Assigner: GitHub, Inc.

Description
OpenBao is an open source identity-based secrets management system. Prior to 2.6.0, OpenBao's vault/policy/acl.go could evaluate a broader wildcard ACL grant before more-specific trailing-wildcard ACL paths with capabilities = ["deny"] for a LIST operation. When a parent path permitted LIST and a child path was denied, the trailing-slash lookup could therefore allow listing the denied path. Other operation types are outside the repository advisory's affected scope. This issue is fixed in version 2.6.0.

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Meta Information

Published
2026-09-23
Last Modified
2026-09-23
Generated
2026-09-24
AI Q&A
2026-09-23
EPSS Evaluated
N/A
NVD
CVE-2026-63131
EUVD
EUVD-2026-85519

Affected Vendors & Products

Showing 2 associated CPEs
Vendor Product Version / Range
openbao openbao 2.6.0
openbao openbao to 2.6.0 (exc)

Helpful Resources

Exploitability

CWE
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KEV
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CWE ID Description
CWE-863 The product performs an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action, but it does not correctly perform the check.

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Executive Summary

This vulnerability in OpenBao (CVE-2026-63131) involves incorrect handling of ACL deny rules when wildcard paths are used. Specifically, if a deny rule was applied to a more specific wildcard path under a parent path with a granting rule, the deny rule was ignored for LIST operations. For example, a policy allowing LIST on 'foo/metadata/*' but denying it on 'foo/metadata/private/*' would incorrectly permit LIST operations on 'foo/metadata/private' and its subpaths.

Detection Guidance

To detect this vulnerability, check OpenBao versions prior to 2.6.0 using commands like 'openbao version' or 'vault version'. Verify ACL policies for wildcard paths where deny rules may be bypassed. Review logs for unauthorized LIST operations on paths with deny rules.

Impact Analysis

This vulnerability could allow unauthorized users to list secrets or paths that should be denied, potentially exposing sensitive data. Attackers with access to OpenBao could exploit this to view restricted paths if the system relies on deny rules with wildcards. The impact is limited to LIST operations and requires specific policy configurations to exploit.

Compliance Impact

This vulnerability could lead to unauthorized access to sensitive data, violating compliance requirements for data protection such as GDPR or HIPAA. If deny rules are bypassed, organizations may fail to enforce proper access controls, resulting in potential data breaches and non-compliance with regulatory standards.

Mitigation Strategies

Upgrade OpenBao to version 2.6.0 or later immediately. Review and update ACL policies to ensure deny rules are correctly enforced. Test policies to confirm deny rules block unauthorized LIST operations on wildcard paths.

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