CVE-2025-6203 (GCVE-0-2025-6203)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2025-08-28 19:36 – Updated: 2025-10-23 18:18
VLAI
Title
Vault unauthenticated denial of service through complex json payload
Summary
A malicious user may submit a specially-crafted complex payload that otherwise meets the default request size limit which results in excessive memory and CPU consumption of Vault. This may lead to a timeout in Vault’s auditing subroutine, potentially resulting in the Vault server to become unresponsive. This vulnerability, CVE-2025-6203, is fixed in Vault Community Edition 1.20.3 and Vault Enterprise 1.20.3, 1.19.9, 1.18.14, and 1.16.25.
Severity
7.5 (High)
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
SSVC
Exploitation: none Automatable: yes Technical Impact: partial
CISA Coordinator · CISA-ADP (v2.0.3)
Decision recorded 2025-08-29 13:36 UTC
CWE
  • CWE-770 - Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
Assigner
References
Impacted products
Vendor Product Version CPE status
HashiCorp Vault Affected: 1.15.0 , < 1.21.0 (semver)
guessed Create a notification for this product.
HashiCorp Vault Enterprise Affected: 1.15.0 , < 1.21.2 (semver)
guessed Create a notification for this product.
Show details on NVD website
To clipboard 

{
  "containers": {
    "adp": [
      {
        "metrics": [
          {
            "other": {
              "content": {
                "id": "CVE-2025-6203",
                "options": [
                  {
                    "Exploitation": "none"
                  },
                  {
                    "Automatable": "yes"
                  },
                  {
                    "Technical Impact": "partial"
                  }
                ],
                "role": "CISA Coordinator",
                "timestamp": "2025-08-29T13:36:43.373189Z",
                "version": "2.0.3"
              },
              "type": "ssvc"
            }
          }
        ],
        "providerMetadata": {
          "dateUpdated": "2025-08-29T13:36:52.434Z",
          "orgId": "134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0",
          "shortName": "CISA-ADP"
        },
        "title": "CISA ADP Vulnrichment"
      }
    ],
    "cna": {
      "affected": [
        {
          "defaultStatus": "unaffected",
          "platforms": [
            "64 bit",
            "32 bit",
            "x86",
            "ARM",
            "MacOS",
            "Windows",
            "Linux"
          ],
          "product": "Vault",
          "repo": "https://github.com/hashicorp/vault",
          "vendor": "HashiCorp",
          "versions": [
            {
              "lessThan": "1.21.0",
              "status": "affected",
              "version": "1.15.0",
              "versionType": "semver"
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          "defaultStatus": "unaffected",
          "platforms": [
            "64 bit",
            "32 bit",
            "x86",
            "ARM",
            "MacOS",
            "Windows",
            "Linux"
          ],
          "product": "Vault Enterprise",
          "repo": "https://github.com/hashicorp/vault",
          "vendor": "HashiCorp",
          "versions": [
            {
              "changes": [
                {
                  "at": "1.20.5",
                  "status": "unaffected"
                },
                {
                  "at": "1.19.11",
                  "status": "unaffected"
                },
                {
                  "at": "1.16.27",
                  "status": "unaffected"
                }
              ],
              "lessThan": "1.21.2",
              "status": "affected",
              "version": "1.15.0",
              "versionType": "semver"
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "descriptions": [
        {
          "lang": "en",
          "supportingMedia": [
            {
              "base64": false,
              "type": "text/html",
              "value": "\u003cp\u003eA malicious user may submit a specially-crafted complex payload that otherwise meets the default request size limit which results in excessive memory and CPU consumption of Vault. This may lead to a timeout in Vault\u2019s auditing subroutine, potentially resulting in the Vault server to become unresponsive. This vulnerability, CVE-2025-6203, is fixed in Vault Community Edition 1.20.3 and Vault Enterprise 1.20.3, 1.19.9, 1.18.14, and 1.16.25.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cbr/\u003e"
            }
          ],
          "value": "A malicious user may submit a specially-crafted complex payload that otherwise meets the default request size limit which results in excessive memory and CPU consumption of Vault. This may lead to a timeout in Vault\u2019s auditing subroutine, potentially resulting in the Vault server to become unresponsive. This vulnerability, CVE-2025-6203, is fixed in Vault Community Edition 1.20.3 and Vault Enterprise 1.20.3, 1.19.9, 1.18.14, and 1.16.25."
        }
      ],
      "impacts": [
        {
          "capecId": "CAPEC-469",
          "descriptions": [
            {
              "lang": "en",
              "value": "CAPEC-469: HTTP DoS"
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "metrics": [
        {
          "cvssV3_1": {
            "baseScore": 7.5,
            "baseSeverity": "HIGH",
            "vectorString": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
            "version": "3.1"
          },
          "format": "CVSS",
          "scenarios": [
            {
              "lang": "en",
              "value": "GENERAL"
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "problemTypes": [
        {
          "descriptions": [
            {
              "cweId": "CWE-770",
              "description": "CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling",
              "lang": "en",
              "type": "CWE"
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "providerMetadata": {
        "dateUpdated": "2025-10-23T18:18:34.361Z",
        "orgId": "67fedba0-ff2e-4543-ba5b-aa93e87718cc",
        "shortName": "HashiCorp"
      },
      "references": [
        {
          "url": "https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/hcsec-2025-24-vault-denial-of-service-though-complex-json-payloads/76393"
        }
      ],
      "source": {
        "advisory": "HCSEC-2025-24",
        "discovery": "EXTERNAL"
      },
      "title": "Vault unauthenticated denial of service through complex json payload"
    }
  },
  "cveMetadata": {
    "assignerOrgId": "67fedba0-ff2e-4543-ba5b-aa93e87718cc",
    "assignerShortName": "HashiCorp",
    "cveId": "CVE-2025-6203",
    "datePublished": "2025-08-28T19:36:09.870Z",
    "dateReserved": "2025-06-17T13:39:36.506Z",
    "dateUpdated": "2025-10-23T18:18:34.361Z",
    "state": "PUBLISHED"
  },
  "dataType": "CVE_RECORD",
  "dataVersion": "5.1",
  "vulnerability-lookup:meta": {
    "epss": {
      "cve": "CVE-2025-6203",
      "date": "2026-10-02",
      "epss": "0.00699",
      "percentile": "0.51451"
    },
    "nvd": {
      "cve": {
        "affected": [
          {
            "affectedData": [
              {
                "defaultStatus": "unaffected",
                "platforms": [
                  "64 bit",
                  "32 bit",
                  "x86",
                  "ARM",
                  "MacOS",
                  "Windows",
                  "Linux"
                ],
                "product": "Vault",
                "repo": "https://github.com/hashicorp/vault",
                "vendor": "HashiCorp",
                "versions": [
                  {
                    "lessThan": "1.21.0",
                    "status": "affected",
                    "version": "1.15.0",
                    "versionType": "semver"
                  }
                ]
              },
              {
                "defaultStatus": "unaffected",
                "platforms": [
                  "64 bit",
                  "32 bit",
                  "x86",
                  "ARM",
                  "MacOS",
                  "Windows",
                  "Linux"
                ],
                "product": "Vault Enterprise",
                "repo": "https://github.com/hashicorp/vault",
                "vendor": "HashiCorp",
                "versions": [
                  {
                    "changes": [
                      {
                        "at": "1.20.5",
                        "status": "unaffected"
                      },
                      {
                        "at": "1.19.11",
                        "status": "unaffected"
                      },
                      {
                        "at": "1.16.27",
                        "status": "unaffected"
                      }
                    ],
                    "lessThan": "1.21.2",
                    "status": "affected",
                    "version": "1.15.0",
                    "versionType": "semver"
                  }
                ]
              }
            ],
            "source": "security@hashicorp.com"
          }
        ],
        "configurations": [
          {
            "nodes": [
              {
                "cpeMatch": [
                  {
                    "criteria": "cpe:2.3:a:hashicorp:vault:*:*:*:*:enterprise:*:*:*",
                    "matchCriteriaId": "C75B707B-CECA-4F3F-B7A5-3A63627E23E0",
                    "versionEndExcluding": "1.16.27",
                    "versionStartIncluding": "1.15.0",
                    "vulnerable": true
                  },
                  {
                    "criteria": "cpe:2.3:a:hashicorp:vault:*:*:*:*:-:*:*:*",
                    "matchCriteriaId": "FFB5EFCB-595D-405C-AEE5-D3A674079A42",
                    "versionEndExcluding": "1.21.0",
                    "versionStartIncluding": "1.15.0",
                    "vulnerable": true
                  },
                  {
                    "criteria": "cpe:2.3:a:hashicorp:vault:*:*:*:*:enterprise:*:*:*",
                    "matchCriteriaId": "BB39834B-EF79-4C8B-B344-D81B15652821",
                    "versionEndExcluding": "1.18.15",
                    "versionStartIncluding": "1.18.0",
                    "vulnerable": true
                  },
                  {
                    "criteria": "cpe:2.3:a:hashicorp:vault:*:*:*:*:enterprise:*:*:*",
                    "matchCriteriaId": "167CFBBB-E0DF-42AB-84AA-4BF19C3873DB",
                    "versionEndExcluding": "1.19.11",
                    "versionStartIncluding": "1.19.0",
                    "vulnerable": true
                  },
                  {
                    "criteria": "cpe:2.3:a:hashicorp:vault:*:*:*:*:enterprise:*:*:*",
                    "matchCriteriaId": "466A7DC1-B9A3-4413-AA3E-AFAF34350E52",
                    "versionEndExcluding": "1.20.5",
                    "versionStartIncluding": "1.20.0",
                    "vulnerable": true
                  }
                ],
                "negate": false,
                "operator": "OR"
              }
            ]
          }
        ],
        "cveTags": [],
        "descriptions": [
          {
            "lang": "en",
            "value": "A malicious user may submit a specially-crafted complex payload that otherwise meets the default request size limit which results in excessive memory and CPU consumption of Vault. This may lead to a timeout in Vault\u2019s auditing subroutine, potentially resulting in the Vault server to become unresponsive. This vulnerability, CVE-2025-6203, is fixed in Vault Community Edition 1.20.3 and Vault Enterprise 1.20.3, 1.19.9, 1.18.14, and 1.16.25."
          },
          {
            "lang": "es",
            "value": "Un usuario malintencionado puede enviar una carga \u00fatil compleja especialmente dise\u00f1ada que, por lo dem\u00e1s, cumple con el l\u00edmite de tama\u00f1o de solicitud predeterminado, lo que resulta en un consumo excesivo de memoria y CPU de Vault. Esto puede provocar un tiempo de espera en la subrutina de auditor\u00eda de Vault, lo que podr\u00eda resultar en que el servidor de Vault deje de responder. Esta vulnerabilidad, CVE-2025-6203, est\u00e1 corregida en Vault Community Edition 1.20.3 y Vault Enterprise 1.20.3, 1.19.9, 1.18.14 y 1.16.25."
          }
        ],
        "id": "CVE-2025-6203",
        "lastModified": "2026-09-26T00:10:00.127",
        "metrics": {
          "cvssMetricV31": [
            {
              "cvssData": {
                "attackComplexity": "LOW",
                "attackVector": "NETWORK",
                "availabilityImpact": "HIGH",
                "baseScore": 7.5,
                "baseSeverity": "HIGH",
                "confidentialityImpact": "NONE",
                "integrityImpact": "NONE",
                "privilegesRequired": "NONE",
                "scope": "UNCHANGED",
                "userInteraction": "NONE",
                "vectorString": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
                "version": "3.1"
              },
              "exploitabilityScore": 3.9,
              "impactScore": 3.6,
              "source": "security@hashicorp.com",
              "type": "Secondary"
            }
          ],
          "ssvcV203": [
            {
              "source": "134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0",
              "ssvcData": {
                "id": "CVE-2025-6203",
                "options": [
                  {
                    "exploitation": "none"
                  },
                  {
                    "automatable": "yes"
                  },
                  {
                    "technicalImpact": "partial"
                  }
                ],
                "role": "CISA Coordinator",
                "timestamp": "2025-08-29T13:36:43.373189Z",
                "version": "2.0.3"
              }
            }
          ]
        },
        "published": "2025-08-28T20:15:43.817",
        "references": [
          {
            "source": "security@hashicorp.com",
            "tags": [
              "Vendor Advisory"
            ],
            "url": "https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/hcsec-2025-24-vault-denial-of-service-though-complex-json-payloads/76393"
          }
        ],
        "sourceIdentifier": "security@hashicorp.com",
        "vulnStatus": "Analyzed",
        "weaknesses": [
          {
            "description": [
              {
                "lang": "en",
                "value": "CWE-770"
              }
            ],
            "source": "security@hashicorp.com",
            "type": "Secondary"
          }
        ]
      }
    },
    "redhat_vex": {
      "aggregate_severity": "Moderate",
      "current_release_date": "2026-06-27T13:41:05+00:00",
      "cve": "CVE-2025-6203",
      "id": "CVE-2025-6203",
      "initial_release_date": "2025-08-28T19:36:09.870000+00:00",
      "product_status:known_affected": "5",
      "product_status:known_not_affected": "3",
      "source": "Red Hat CSAF VEX",
      "status": "final",
      "title": "github.com/hashicorp/vault: Vault unauthenticated denial of service",
      "url": "https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/2025/cve-2025-6203.json",
      "version": "3"
    },
    "suse_vex": {
      "aggregate_severity": "important",
      "current_release_date": "2026-07-31T01:22:23Z",
      "cve": "CVE-2025-6203",
      "id": "CVE-2025-6203",
      "initial_release_date": "2025-09-10T23:27:36Z",
      "product_status:recommended": "9",
      "source": "SUSE CSAF VEX",
      "status": "interim",
      "title": "SUSE CVE CVE-2025-6203",
      "url": "https://ftp.suse.com/pub/projects/security/csaf-vex/cve-2025-6203.json",
      "version": "6"
    },
    "vulnrichment": {
      "containers": {
        "adp": [
          {
            "metrics": [
              {
                "other": {
                  "content": {
                    "id": "CVE-2025-6203",
                    "options": [
                      {
                        "Exploitation": "none"
                      },
                      {
                        "Automatable": "yes"
                      },
                      {
                        "Technical Impact": "partial"
                      }
                    ],
                    "role": "CISA Coordinator",
                    "timestamp": "2025-08-29T13:36:43.373189Z",
                    "version": "2.0.3"
                  },
                  "type": "ssvc"
                }
              }
            ],
            "providerMetadata": {
              "dateUpdated": "2025-08-29T13:36:49.616Z",
              "orgId": "134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0",
              "shortName": "CISA-ADP"
            },
            "title": "CISA ADP Vulnrichment"
          }
        ],
        "cna": {
          "affected": [
            {
              "defaultStatus": "unaffected",
              "platforms": [
                "64 bit",
                "32 bit",
                "x86",
                "ARM",
                "MacOS",
                "Windows",
                "Linux"
              ],
              "product": "Vault",
              "repo": "https://github.com/hashicorp/vault",
              "vendor": "HashiCorp",
              "versions": [
                {
                  "lessThan": "1.21.0",
                  "status": "affected",
                  "version": "1.15.0",
                  "versionType": "semver"
                }
              ]
            },
            {
              "defaultStatus": "unaffected",
              "platforms": [
                "64 bit",
                "32 bit",
                "x86",
                "ARM",
                "MacOS",
                "Windows",
                "Linux"
              ],
              "product": "Vault Enterprise",
              "repo": "https://github.com/hashicorp/vault",
              "vendor": "HashiCorp",
              "versions": [
                {
                  "changes": [
                    {
                      "at": "1.20.5",
                      "status": "unaffected"
                    },
                    {
                      "at": "1.19.11",
                      "status": "unaffected"
                    },
                    {
                      "at": "1.16.27",
                      "status": "unaffected"
                    }
                  ],
                  "lessThan": "1.21.2",
                  "status": "affected",
                  "version": "1.15.0",
                  "versionType": "semver"
                }
              ]
            }
          ],
          "descriptions": [
            {
              "lang": "en",
              "supportingMedia": [
                {
                  "base64": false,
                  "type": "text/html",
                  "value": "\u003cp\u003eA malicious user may submit a specially-crafted complex payload that otherwise meets the default request size limit which results in excessive memory and CPU consumption of Vault. This may lead to a timeout in Vault\u2019s auditing subroutine, potentially resulting in the Vault server to become unresponsive. This vulnerability, CVE-2025-6203, is fixed in Vault Community Edition 1.20.3 and Vault Enterprise 1.20.3, 1.19.9, 1.18.14, and 1.16.25.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cbr/\u003e"
                }
              ],
              "value": "A malicious user may submit a specially-crafted complex payload that otherwise meets the default request size limit which results in excessive memory and CPU consumption of Vault. This may lead to a timeout in Vault\u2019s auditing subroutine, potentially resulting in the Vault server to become unresponsive. This vulnerability, CVE-2025-6203, is fixed in Vault Community Edition 1.20.3 and Vault Enterprise 1.20.3, 1.19.9, 1.18.14, and 1.16.25."
            }
          ],
          "impacts": [
            {
              "capecId": "CAPEC-469",
              "descriptions": [
                {
                  "lang": "en",
                  "value": "CAPEC-469: HTTP DoS"
                }
              ]
            }
          ],
          "metrics": [
            {
              "cvssV3_1": {
                "baseScore": 7.5,
                "baseSeverity": "HIGH",
                "vectorString": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
                "version": "3.1"
              },
              "format": "CVSS",
              "scenarios": [
                {
                  "lang": "en",
                  "value": "GENERAL"
                }
              ]
            }
          ],
          "problemTypes": [
            {
              "descriptions": [
                {
                  "cweId": "CWE-770",
                  "description": "CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling",
                  "lang": "en",
                  "type": "CWE"
                }
              ]
            }
          ],
          "providerMetadata": {
            "dateUpdated": "2025-10-23T18:18:34.361Z",
            "orgId": "67fedba0-ff2e-4543-ba5b-aa93e87718cc",
            "shortName": "HashiCorp"
          },
          "references": [
            {
              "url": "https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/hcsec-2025-24-vault-denial-of-service-though-complex-json-payloads/76393"
            }
          ],
          "source": {
            "advisory": "HCSEC-2025-24",
            "discovery": "EXTERNAL"
          },
          "title": "Vault unauthenticated denial of service through complex json payload"
        }
      },
      "cveMetadata": {
        "assignerOrgId": "67fedba0-ff2e-4543-ba5b-aa93e87718cc",
        "assignerShortName": "HashiCorp",
        "cveId": "CVE-2025-6203",
        "datePublished": "2025-08-28T19:36:09.870Z",
        "dateReserved": "2025-06-17T13:39:36.506Z",
        "dateUpdated": "2025-10-23T18:18:34.361Z",
        "state": "PUBLISHED"
      },
      "dataType": "CVE_RECORD",
      "dataVersion": "5.1"
    }
  }
}



Log in or create an account to share your comment.




Tags
Taxonomy of the tags.





Forecast uses a logistic model when the trend is rising, or an exponential decay model when the trend is falling. Fitted via linearized least squares.

Sightings

Author Source Type Date Other

Nomenclature

  • Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
  • Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
  • Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
  • Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
  • Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.



Related by attack behaviour

Vulnerabilities whose description is nearest to this one in the vector space of the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-biencoder model. This is a similarity search over the bi-encoder space (plain cosine), not a classification, and it has no measured accuracy.