CVE-2025-4404
Description
A privilege escalation from host to domain vulnerability was found in the FreeIPA project. The FreeIPA package fails to validate the uniqueness of the krbCanonicalName for the admin account by default, allowing users to create services with the same canonical name as the REALM admin. When a successful attack happens, the user can retrieve a Kerberos ticket in the name of this service, containing the admin@REALM credential. This flaw allows an attacker to perform administrative tasks over the REALM, leading to access to sensitive data and sensitive data exfiltration.
Statement
For an attack to be successfully executed, the Kerberos ticket needs to be requested with the PAC information.
This vulnerability is marked as Important rather than a Moderate one because it allows a local or authenticated attacker to escalate privileges from host-level to full domain-level administrative access within a FreeIPA-managed environment. By exploiting the lack of uniqueness enforcement on the krbCanonicalName attribute, an attacker can craft a principal with the same canonical name as the domain admin (e.g., admin@REALM) and obtain a Kerberos service ticket that includes PAC (Privilege Attribute Certificate) data. This results in the impersonation of the admin identity, granting unrestricted access to sensitive systems and data. Since Kerberos-based authentication is trusted across the domain, this breach compromises the entire security boundary of the realm, allowing administrative tasks like user management, policy manipulation, and credential extraction.
Mitigation
No mitigation is currently available that meets Red Hat Product Security’s standards for usability, deployment, applicability, or stability.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 9.1 | N/A | 9.1 |
| Attack Vector | Network | N/A | Network |
| Attack Complexity | Low | N/A | Low |
| Privileges Required | High | N/A | High |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | None |
| Scope | Changed | N/A | Changed |
| Confidentiality | High | N/A | High |
| Integrity Impact | High | N/A | High |
| Availability Impact | High | N/A | High |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Confidentiality,Integrity,Availability,Access Control
Technical Impact: Modify Memory; Read Memory; Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands; Gain Privileges or Assume Identity; Bypass Protection Mechanism; Other
Acknowledgements
Red Hat would like to thank Mikhail Sukhov (Positive Technologies) for reporting this issue.
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