CVE-2024-7594: Vault SSH Secrets Engine Configuration Did Not Restrict Valid Principals By Default

Severity: high (CVSS 8.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2024-09-26 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-732

Description

Vault’s SSH secrets engine did not require the valid_principals list to contain a value by default. If the valid_principals and default_user fields of the SSH secrets engine configuration are not set, an SSH certificate requested by an authorized user to Vault’s SSH secrets engine could be used to authenticate as any user on the host. Fixed in Vault Community Edition 1.17.6, and in Vault Enterprise 1.17.6, 1.16.10, and 1.15.15.

Affected products

HashiCorp Vault: from 1.7.7 before 1.15.15; from 1.7.7 before 1.17.6; from 1.16.0 before 1.16.10; from 1.17.0 before 1.17.6 — fixed in 1.15.15, 1.16.10, 1.17.6
openbao: before 2.0.2 — fixed in 2.0.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: HashiCorp Vault 1.15.15, 1.16.10, 1.17.6; openbao 2.0.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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