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Improper AuthorizationWeakness · CWE-285

CVE-2025-41249

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-09-16
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
84/100
Remediation priority · High
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
The Spring Framework 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 if such annotations are used for authorization decisions. 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-2025-41248 https://spring.io/security/cve-2025-41248 .

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

Spring Framework's annotation detection fails to correctly resolve security annotations (like @PreAuthorize) on methods within type hierarchies that extend parameterized super types with unbounded generics. When using @EnableMethodSecurity, this can cause authorization checks to be bypassed for affected methods because the annotation detection mechanism does not properly traverse these generic type hierarchies.

MitigationReview all methods in classes that extend generic superclasses or implement generic interfaces for proper authorization enforcement; consider applying security annotations directly on interface methods or upgrading to the patched Spring version when available.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify the Spring Framework version in use
    Inspect your project's dependency manifest: for Maven, check pom.xml for the spring-framework-version or spring-security-version; for Gradle, check build.gradle. Also examine the JAR files in your deployment for spring-core or spring-security-core and note the exact version from the filename.
    Affected if The installed Spring Framework version falls within the vulnerable range (prior to the patched release).
  2. Confirm @EnableMethodSecurity is enabled
    Search your codebase for the @EnableMethodSecurity annotation. This may appear on any @Configuration class, typically in a security configuration file. Use grep or your IDE to search for 'EnableMethodSecurity'.
    Affected if @EnableMethodSecurity is present and active in your application configuration.
  3. Locate classes extending unbounded generic supertypes
    Search for Java classes that declare inheritance from generic supertypes using unbounded type parameters, such as 'extends BaseClass<T>' or 'extends AbstractDao<T>' where <T> has no bounds (no 'extends SomeType' or '? extends Something'). Use grep to find patterns like 'extends.*<[A-Z]>' in your .java source files.
    Affected if Your codebase contains classes that extend parameterized super types with unbounded generic type parameters.
  4. Identify @PreAuthorize or @Secured annotations on methods in affected classes
    For each class identified in step 3, examine whether methods within those classes (or their parent hierarchies) carry @PreAuthorize, @Secured, or other method-level security annotations. Search for these annotations in the same class hierarchy.
    Affected if Security annotations like @PreAuthorize exist on methods within classes that extend unbounded generic supertypes, and these annotations may not be correctly detected by the framework.

Your environment is affected if you use a vulnerable Spring Framework version with @EnableMethodSecurity enabled and have classes extending unbounded generic supertypes that contain security-annotated methods, as the framework may fail to enforce authorization on those methods.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Review all methods in classes that extend generic superclasses or implement generic interfaces for proper authorization enforcement; consider applying security annotations directly on interface methods or upgrading to the patched Spring version when available.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation6.0 h
  • Testing4.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
16.0 hours of engineering $2,840
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-41249 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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