CVE-2025-26467: Apache Cassandra: User with MODIFY permission on ALL KEYSPACES can escalate privileges to superuser via unsafe actions (4.0.16 only)

[Paulo Motta <paulo () apache org>]

Severity: moderate

Affected versions:

- Apache Cassandra 4.0.16

Description:

Privilege Defined With Unsafe Actions vulnerability in Apache Cassandra. An user with MODIFY permission ON ALL 
KEYSPACES can escalate privileges to superuser within a targeted Cassandra cluster via unsafe actions to a system 
resource. Operators granting data MODIFY permission on all keyspaces on affected versions should review data access 
rules for potential breaches.



This issue affects Apache Cassandra 3.0.30, 3.11.17, 4.0.16, 4.1.7, 5.0.2, but this advisory is only for 4.0.16 because 
the fix to CVE-2025-23015 was incorrectly applied to 4.0.16, so that version is still affected.

Users in the 4.0 series are recommended to upgrade to version 4.0.17 which fixes the issue. Users from 3.0, 3.11, 4.1 
and 5.0 series should follow recommendation from CVE-2025-23015.

Credit:

Adam Pond of Apple Services Engineering Security (finder)
Ali Mirheidari of Apple Services Engineering Security (finder)
Terry Thibault of Apple Services Engineering Security (finder)
Will Brattain of Apple Services Engineering Security (finder)

References:

https://cassandra.apache.org/
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-26467