CVE-2025-23015: Apache Cassandra: User with MODIFY permission on ALL KEYSPACES can escalate privileges to superuser via unsafe actions

[Paulo Motta <paulo () apache org>]

Severity: moderate

Affected versions:

- Apache Cassandra 3.0.0 through 3.0.30
- Apache Cassandra 3.1.0 through 3.11.17
- Apache Cassandra 4.0.0 through 4.0.15
- Apache Cassandra 4.1.0 through 4.1.7
- Apache Cassandra 5.0.0 through 5.0.2

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 through 3.0.30, 3.11.17, 4.0.15, 4.1.7, 5.0.2.

Users are recommended to upgrade to versions 3.0.31, 3.11.18, 4.0.16, 4.1.8, 5.0.3, which fixes the issue.

This issue was reported by Adam Pond, Ali Mirheidari, Terry Thibault, and Will Brattain of Apple Services Engineering 
Security.

References:

https://cassandra.apache.org/
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-23015