CVE-2026-55776

OpenBao: Transit secrets engine crashes on key creation with `derived: true` for asymmetric key types

Published Sep 15, 2026 CVSS 3.1 · 6.5 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
OpenBao is an open source identity-based secrets management system. Prior to 2.5.5, an authenticated OpenBao caller with write access to transit/keys/* could terminate the server process by setting derived to true while the type parameter selected rsa-, ecdsa-, or ed25519. The Transit policy creation path in builtin/logical/transit/backend.go and sdk/helper/keysutil/policy.go could reach an error path that double-unlocked a mutex while handling this invalid asymmetric derived-key combination, causing a panic, no HTTP response, process exit, and denial of service. JSON and HCL key-creation requests can express the triggering combination. This issue is fixed in version 2.5.5.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-8w8f-r2xv-4q4j OpenBao: Transit secrets engine crashes on key creation with `derived: true` for asymmetric key types
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'poc', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Openbao
Openbao openbao
Vendors & Products Openbao
Openbao openbao
Type Values Removed Values Added
Description OpenBao is an open source identity-based secrets management system. Prior to 2.5.5, an authenticated OpenBao caller with write access to transit/keys/* could terminate the server process by setting derived to true while the type parameter selected rsa-, ecdsa-, or ed25519. The Transit policy creation path in builtin/logical/transit/backend.go and sdk/helper/keysutil/policy.go could reach an error path that double-unlocked a mutex while handling this invalid asymmetric derived-key combination, causing a panic, no HTTP response, process exit, and denial of service. JSON and HCL key-creation requests can express the triggering combination. This issue is fixed in version 2.5.5.
Title OpenBao: Transit secrets engine crashes on key creation with `derived: true` for asymmetric key types
Weaknesses CWE-617
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 6.5, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
GitHub_M
Published
Updated
Sep 17, 2026, 3:35 PM
Reserved
Jun 17, 2026, 2:40 PM
Status
Deferred
Published
Sep 15, 2026, 4:17 PM
Modified
Sep 29, 2026, 7:06 PM