CVE: CVE-2025-32801
Title: Loading a malicious hook library can lead to local privilege escalation
Document version: 2.0
Posting date: 28 May 2025
Program impacted: Kea
Versions affected:
Kea
- 2.4.0 -> 2.4.1
- 2.6.0 -> 2.6.2
- 2.7.0 -> 2.7.8
(Versions prior to 2.4.0 were not assessed.)
End-of-life versions are likely also affected but have not been tested.
Severity: High
Exploitable: Locally
Description:
Kea configuration and API directives can be used to load a malicious hook library. Many common configurations run Kea as root, leave the API entry points unsecured by default, and/or place the control sockets in insecure paths.
Impact:
If an attacker has access to a local unprivileged user account, and the Kea API entry points are not secured, the attacker can instruct Kea to load a hook library from an arbitrary local file (including a file introduced by the attacker). The malicious hook would execute with the privileges available to Kea.
CVSS Score: 7.8
CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
For more information on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System and to obtain your specific environmental score please visit: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln-metrics/cvss/v3-calculator?vector=AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H&version=3.1.
Workarounds:
Two mitigation approaches are possible: (1) Disable the Kea API entirely, by (1a) disabling the kea-ctrl-agent, and (1b) removing any "control-socket" stanzas from the Kea configuration files; or (2) Secure access to the API by (2a) requiring authentication (a password or client certificate) for the kea-ctrl-agent, and (2b) configuring all "control-socket" stanzas to use a directory restricted to only trusted users.
Active exploits:
We are not aware of any active exploits.
Solution:
Upgrade to the patched release most closely related to your current version of Kea:
- 2.4.2
- 2.6.3
- 2.7.9
Acknowledgments:
ISC would like to thank Matthias Gerstner from the SUSE security team and Laura Pardo from Red Hat's Product Security Team for bringing this vulnerability to our attention.
Document revision history:
- 1.0 Early Notification, 21 May 2025
- 1.1 Changed CVSS Score from 8.4 to 7.8 (PR:N to PR:L), 22 May 2025
- 2.0 Public disclosure, 28 May 2025
Do you still have questions? Questions regarding this advisory should be mailed to kea-security@isc.org or posted as confidential GitLab issues at https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/issues/new?issue[confidential]=true.
Note:
ISC patches only currently supported versions. When possible we indicate EOL versions affected. For current information on which versions are actively supported, please see https://www.isc.org/download/.
ISC Security Vulnerability Disclosure Policy:
Details of our current security advisory policy and practice can be found in the ISC Software Defect and Security Vulnerability Disclosure Policy at https://kb.isc.org/docs/aa-00861.
The Knowledgebase article https://kb.isc.org/docs/cve-2025-32801 is the complete and official security advisory document.
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