CVE-2025-6203: Vault unauthenticated denial of service through complex json payload
Description
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.
Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H · CWE-770
Tracked companies
Mapped from the CVE’s affected-product data, NVD CPE matches, vendor advisories or package feeds. A mapping means the vendor’s software is named, not that its hosted service was exposed.
Status incidents that name it
No tracked status incident names this CVE.
Affected vendors and products
HashiCorp: VaultHashiCorp: Vault Enterprise
References
- CVE record on cve.org (opens in new tab)
- NVD entry (opens in new tab)
- discuss.hashicorp.com/t/hcsec-2025-24-vault-denial-of-service-though-complex-json-payloads/… (opens in new tab)
- CVE records from the CVE Program (cve.org). CVE® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. (opens in new tab)
- This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. (opens in new tab)
- Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog from CISA. (opens in new tab)
- EPSS scores from FIRST (Exploit Prediction Scoring System). (opens in new tab)