CyberSecBulletin
CVE-2025-41248NVD status: Deferred

Spring Security: Authentication Bypass by Alternate Name

Published Updated By the CyberSecBulletin desk

CVE-2025-41248 is a high-severity authentication bypass by alternate name vulnerability in Spring Security from VMware, with a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.5 out of 10. It can be exploited remotely over the network by an unauthenticated attacker, without any action from a user. The record lists versions 6.4.11, 6.5.5 as the first without the flaw, so updating Spring Security to one of those releases or later removes the exposure. There is no confirmed exploitation so far. EPSS estimates a 0.45% chance of exploitation within 30 days, which is low compared with other CVEs.

Next patch cycle

High severity with no evidence of exploitation so far.

What to do

  1. Update Spring Security to 6.4.11 or 6.5.5, whichever matches your release line, or a later version.
  2. Until you can update, restrict network access to the affected service so it is not reachable from untrusted networks.

Affected products and versions

VendorProductAffected versionsFixed in
VMwareSpring Security6.4.x up to, but not including, 6.4.11; 6.5.x up to, but not including, 6.5.56.4.11, 6.5.5

Version data comes from the organisation that assigned the CVE. Confirm against the vendor advisory before deciding you are unaffected.

How the severity score breaks down

Attack vector
NetworkCan be exploited remotely over a network, including the internet.
Attack complexity
LowNo special conditions are needed; the attack works reliably.
Privileges required
NoneNo account or login is needed.
User interaction
NoneNo action by a victim is required.
Scope
UnchangedImpact stays within the vulnerable component.
Confidentiality
HighAll data handled by the component can be read.
Integrity
NoneNothing can be modified.
Availability
NoneAvailability is not affected.

Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N. Scored by CNA (vmware.com).

Official description

The Spring Security annotation detection mechanism may not correctly resolve annotations on methods within type hierarchies with a parameterized super type with unbounded generics. This can be an issue when using @PreAuthorize and other method security annotations, resulting in an authorization bypass. Your application may be affected by this if you are using Spring Security's @EnableMethodSecurity feature. You are not affected by this if you are not using @EnableMethodSecurity or if you do not use security annotations on methods in generic superclasses or generic interfaces. This CVE is published in conjunction with CVE-2025-41249 https://spring.io/security/cve-2025-41249 .

Source: the CVE record as published by its numbering authority, via NVD and CVE.org.

The underlying weakness: Authentication Bypass by Alternate Name

The product performs authentication based on the name of a resource being accessed, or the name of the actor performing the access, but it does not properly check all possible names for that resource or actor.

How developers prevent this class of flaw

  • Avoid making decisions based on names of resources (e.g. files) if those resources can have alternate names.
  • Inputs should be decoded and canonicalized to the application's current internal representation before being validated (CWE-180). Make sure that the application does not decode the same input twice (CWE-174). Such errors could be used to bypass allowlist validation schemes by introducing dangerous inputs after they have been checked.

More Authentication Bypass by Alternate Name vulnerabilities (CWE-289)

Timeline

  1. CVE record published.
  2. CISA published its SSVC assessment (exploitation: none, automatable: no, technical impact: partial).
  3. Record last changed materially (score, affected products, status or references).

References

Other vulnerabilities in Spring Security

All Spring Security vulnerabilities

Recent Authentication Bypass by Alternate Name vulnerabilities

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