Privilege escalation in Strongbox

Exploitation

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

CVSS

not scored

EPSS

No dated EPSS signal available.

As published by the source; long descriptions are shortened.

Impact An attacker with read-only access to a Strongbox secret could craft a valid encrypted secret (same id/version). It also makes the audit logs from KMS less useful. The issue is caused by a bug in the underlying AWS Encryption SDK. By default, the encrypted secrets are stored in DynamoDB and an attacker with read-only access would not be able to write the encrypted secret to DynamoDB. So in practice the impact should be limited for most users. Strongbox supports storing data in files as an alternative to DynamoDB. If the attacker had write access to where the files are stored they could make the attack work end-to-end. Similarly, any custom storage backend could also be affected. In order to be backwards compatible Strongbox will not make use of key commitments (another improvement to the AWS Encryption SDK). Strongbox enforces that only one KMS key can be used, and it must match the expected one. This means that an attacker needs write access to both KMS and DynamoDB (or other…

Published by the source

16 Feb 2023, 14:12 UTC

Last modified by the source

10 Apr 2023, 20:15 UTC

Source last checked

26 Oct 2026, 16:11 UTC

1. Revision 1 · created · 26 Oct 2026

   Published from ghsa record GHSA-mhgm-52vg-pvvc

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# Patch Next advisory brief: GHSA-mhgm-52vg-pvvc

Advisory: Privilege escalation in Strongbox
IDs: GHSA-mhgm-52vg-pvvc
Record: https://patchnext.com/advisories/ghsa-mhgm-52vg-pvvc (revision 1, source checked 26 Oct 2026, 16:11 UTC)
Inventory: none attached. This brief comes from a public page and does not say whether any deployment is affected.
Severity: Unrated
Exploitation: no confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next confirms exploitation only from CISA KEV.
Vendor response: Vendor fix available; fixed versions by package: com.schibsted.security:strongbox-sdk 0.5.0. A vendor fix does not mean a deployment is fixed.

## Affected components
- Maven com.schibsted.security:strongbox-sdk: affected < 0.5.0; fixed in 0.5.0

## Suggested inspection (read-only)
- Maven com.schibsted.security:strongbox-sdk: 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 com.schibsted.security:strongbox-sdk.
- 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-mhgm-52vg-pvvc (GitHub-reviewed advisory GHSA-mhgm-52vg-pvvc lists affected ranges: Maven com.schibsted.security:strongbox-sdk >=0 <0.5.0)

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