Minio unsafe default: Access keys inherit admin of root user, allowing privilege escalation

Exploitation

No confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next marks exploitation only from CISA KEV.

CVSS

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

EPSS

• CVE-2024-24747: 34.09% estimated exploitation activity in the next 30 days; percentile 98.40 (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-03). This is a model estimate, not proof of exploitation or customer exposure.

As published by the source; long descriptions are shortened.

Summary When someone creates an access key, it inherits the permissions of the parent key. Not only for s3: actions, but also admin: actions. Which means unless somewhere above in the access-key hierarchy, the admin rights are denied, access keys will be able to simply override their own s3 permissions to something more permissive. Credit to @xSke for sort of accidentally discovering this. I only understood the implications. Details / PoC We spun up the latest version of minio in a docker container and signed in to the admin UI using the minio root user. We created two buckets, public and private and created an access key called mycat and attached the following policy to only allow access to the bucket called public. We then set an alias in mc: mcli alias set vuln http://localhost:9001 mycat mycatiscute And checked whether policy works: Looks good, we believe this is how 99% of users will work with access policies. If I now create a file full-access-policy.json: And then: mycat has…

Published by the source

1 Feb 2024, 19:21 UTC

Last modified by the source

1 Feb 2024, 22:52 UTC

Source last checked

26 Oct 2026, 15:03 UTC

1. Revision 1 · created · 26 Oct 2026

   Published from ghsa record GHSA-xx8w-mq23-29g4

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# Patch Next advisory brief: CVE-2024-24747

Advisory: Minio unsafe default: Access keys inherit `admin` of root user, allowing privilege escalation
IDs: CVE-2024-24747, GHSA-xx8w-mq23-29g4
Record: https://patchnext.com/advisories/cve-2024-24747 (revision 1, source checked 26 Oct 2026, 15:03 UTC)
Inventory: none attached. This brief comes from a public page and does not say whether any deployment is affected.
Severity: High (CVSS 8.8)
Exploitation: no confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next confirms exploitation only from CISA KEV.
Vendor response: Vendor fix available; fixed versions by package: github.com/minio/minio 0.0.0-20240131185645-0ae4915a9391. A vendor fix does not mean a deployment is fixed.

## Affected components
- Go github.com/minio/minio: affected < 0.0.0-20240131185645-0ae4915a9391; fixed in 0.0.0-20240131185645-0ae4915a9391

## Suggested inspection (read-only)
- Go github.com/minio/minio: check the installed version with your package manager.

## Supported action
Upgrade each affected component to a fixed version on its release line. For a transitive dependency, upgrade the parent package or add an override or constraint, then regenerate the lockfile. Redeploy every environment that ran an affected version.

## Required regression checks
- Run the test suite and a production build.
- Exercise the features that depend on github.com/minio/minio.
- Repeat the inspection and confirm that only fixed versions remain installed.

## Rollback considerations
- Keep the previous lockfile and deployment artifact. Rolling back reinstates the vulnerable version, so apply any documented mitigation while you fix forward.

## Unresolved questions
- Which deployments run an affected version?
- Exploitation status can change. Check again before lowering the priority.
- Mark the work resolved only after the fixed version is verified in production.

## Sources
- Verified: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-xx8w-mq23-29g4 (GitHub-reviewed advisory GHSA-xx8w-mq23-29g4 lists affected ranges: Go github.com/minio/minio >=0 <0.0.0-20240131185645-0ae4915a9391)

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