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Improper AuthenticationWeakness · CWE-287

CVE-2025-44005

CRITICAL · 10.0 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-12-17
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
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
An attacker can bypass authorization checks and force a Step CA ACME or SCEP provisioner to create certificates without completing certain protocol authorization checks.

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 · moderate confidence

This is an authorization bypass vulnerability in Step CA's ACME and SCEP provisioners. An attacker can circumvent authorization checks to force the certificate authority to issue certificates without completing required protocol-level authorization, effectively allowing unauthorized certificate issuance.

MitigationImmediately patch Step CA to the latest version once available, review issued certificate logs for any unauthorized certificates, and consider rotating certificates issued around the vulnerability window.

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
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/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. Check Step CA version
    Run 'step-ca --version' or check the version file in the Step CA installation directory
    Affected if Version is earlier than the patched version released for this CVE
  2. Identify ACME provisioner configuration
    Examine the provisioners section in Step CA's config.json or .step/secrets/provisioners.json
    Affected if An ACME provisioner is defined and enabled in the configuration
  3. Identify SCEP provisioner configuration
    Examine the provisioners section in Step CA's config.json or .step/secrets/provisioners.json
    Affected if A SCEP provisioner is defined and enabled in the configuration
  4. Review certificate issuance logs
    Inspect Step CA audit logs for certificate requests, focusing on ACME and SCEP provisioner endpoints
    Affected if Certificates exist that completed without proper ACME or SCEP protocol-level authorization challenges
  5. Check provisioner authorization settings
    Review the ACME and SCEP provisioner definitions in the config for any allow/require fields that control authorization requirements
    Affected if Authorization requirements are present but may have been bypassed in requests

A user is affected if Step CA is running with ACME or SCEP provisioners enabled and the installed version predates the CVE fix, regardless of provisioner authorization configuration.

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.

dbcve · scoped
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Immediately patch Step CA to the latest version once available, review issued certificate logs for any unauthorized certificates, and consider rotating certificates issued around the vulnerability window.

Recommended fix Moderate confidence

Step CA version 0.26.0 or later

  1. Identify the current Step CA version by running `step-ca --version` or checking the running container/image tag
  2. Backup the Step CA configuration directory (typically /etc/step-ca or the directory specified in STEP_ROOT)
  3. Download Step CA version 0.26.0 or later from the Smallstep releases page (github.com/smallstep/certificates/releases)
  4. Stop the Step CA service: `systemctl stop step-ca` or `docker stop <container>`
  5. Replace the step-ca binary with the new version
  6. If using Docker, pull the new image: `docker pull smallstep/step-ca:<version>` where version is 0.26.0 or later
  7. Restart the Step CA service: `systemctl start step-ca` or start the new container
  8. Verify the new version is running: `step-ca --version`
Caveat Review release notes for any breaking changes between your current version and 0.26.0; may require configuration adjustments for deprecated options

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation6.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing8.0 h
  • Review / QA4.0 h
26.0 hours of engineering $4,560
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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-2025-44005 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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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
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data