CVE-2026-55776OpenBao: Transit secrets engine crashes on key creation with `derived: true` for asymmetric key types
- 6.5MediumCVSS base score
- 0.61%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 50% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- YesPublic exploitsa reference or SSVC says so
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.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. A reference of the record is tagged as an exploit. CISA's SSVC rates its exploitation: a proof of concept is public.
Show the exploits1
References tagged exploit1 reference
- https://github.com/openbao/openbao/security/advisories/GHSA-8w8f-r2xv-4q4j (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMexploit
Timeline
ID reserved
By GitHub_M
- 3 months later
· 3 months later
Published
- 2 days later
· 2 days later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub_MCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | Medium6.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Deferred | 3.1 | Medium6.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.61% · top 50% of all CVEs (13 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: poc · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 6.5.
Affected products
Affected packages
From reviewed advisories of the GitHub Advisory Database.
- Gogithub.com/openbao/openbaoGHSA-8w8f-r2xv-4q4j (opens in a new tab)
References
References7
- https://github.com/openbao/openbao/security/advisories/GHSA-8w8f-r2xv-4q4j (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMexploit
- https://github.com/openbao/openbao/pull/3309 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/openbao/openbao/pull/3312 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/openbao/openbao/commit/bb17827f3e33779a10166f7d0e61b191c0facef9 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/openbao/openbao/commit/db57c62602b25da12951f3f0edb888e7c4da61e5 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/openbao/openbao/releases/tag/v2.5.5 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/openbao/openbao/releases/tag/v2.6.0 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISC
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2026-78682 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisory GHSA-8w8f-r2xv-4q4j (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2026-55776)Record last updated .