Privilege Escalation in MAAS via Websocket Request Manipulation
An Improper Input Validation vulnerability exists in the user websocket handler of MAAS. An authenticated, unprivileged attacker can intercept a user.update websocket request and inject the is_superuser property set to true. The server improperly validates this input, allowing the attacker to self-promote to an administrator role. This results in full administrative control over the MAAS deployment.
- Published
- Dec 3, 2025
- Updated
- Jun 17, 2026
- EPSS
- 0.3% · 17th percentile
- CWE
- CWE-269
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Report tools
Action score
26
Monitor
Low priority for now.
- CVSS
- 26 / 40 · 6.5 / 10
- CISA KEV
- 0 / 30 · Not listed
- EPSS
- 0 / 30 · 0.3%
CISA SSVC decision
- Exploitation
- none
- Automatable
- no
- Technical impact
- partial
Vulnrichment: CISA's decision-tree inputs.
CNA vs NVD score
- NVD
- 6.5
- CNA · canonical
- 7.7
- 1.2 point gap
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N
The score given by the assigning authority versus NVD’s independent score. A gap means the severity is contested.
Affected systems
| Vendor | Product | CPE |
|---|---|---|
| canonical | maas | cpe:2.3:a:canonical:maas |
Affected versions
NVD version ranges (for catalog products). Add the product to your stack with a version and matching uses these.
- canonical maas3.3.0 and later · before 3.3.11
- canonical maas3.4.0 and later · before 3.4.9
- canonical maas3.5.0 and later · before 3.5.9
- canonical maas3.6.0 and later · before 3.6.2
Versions reported by the vendor
Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (canonical). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.
Ubuntu MAAS
- 3.7.0, 3.8.0not affected
- 3.3.0 and later · before 3.3.11affected · semver
- 3.4.0 and later · before 3.4.9affected · semver
- 3.5.0 and later · before 3.5.9affected · semver
- 3.6.0 and later · before 3.6.2affected · semver
Remediation
Which version to upgrade to
Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.
| Product / package | Fixed version | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu MAAS | 3.3.11 | Vendor (CNA) |
| Ubuntu MAAS | 3.4.9 | Vendor (CNA) |
| Ubuntu MAAS | 3.5.9 | Vendor (CNA) |
| Ubuntu MAAS | 3.6.2 | Vendor (CNA) |
Exploit status
No known public exploit
No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.
Research context
For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.
Timeline
From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.
No dated events beyond publication.
FIRST EPSS daily score; only changes of 0.01 or more are recorded (step chart).
Patch and commit links
Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.
No commit or PR link among the references.
Credits
All researchersFinders, reporters and analysts named in the CNA record. Click a name for that researcher’s other records.
- Jacopo Rotafinder
Variant candidates
Same product, same weakness class, within 18 months. If the patch missed the root cause, the sibling bug is here.
No nightly-computed relations.
Chain candidates
An authentication bypass and a privilege-requiring bug in the same product, published close together: combined they may become an unauthenticated path.
—
Bug bounty scope
No known public program.
Source: bounty-targets-data (public HackerOne, Bugcrowd, Intigriti, YesWeHack listings).
Technical details
Attack conditions
- Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it.
- A low-privileged account is enough.
- No user action is required.
- No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.
If successful
- Confidentiality
- high · data can be read
- Integrity
- none
- Availability
- none
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality impact
- High
- Integrity impact
- None
- Availability impact
- None
Weakness class (CWE)
CWE-269 · Improper Privilege ManagementCVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
nvd-primary
Root cause
To simplify setup, a service account is granted broad, cluster-wide permissions. The principle of least privilege is skipped during installation.
The bug in code
The whole CWE-269 classA representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.
Vulnerable
kind: ClusterRolerules: - apiGroups: ["*"] resources: ["*"] verbs: ["*"]Fixed
kind: Rolemetadata: namespace: lodos-systemrules: - apiGroups: ["apps"] resources: ["deployments"] verbs: ["get", "list", "update"]Attack context
MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.
Noroxi analysis
No Noroxi analysis for this record yet
We don't hand-write analysis for all 385,000+ vulnerabilities; that wouldn't be honest. For notable, high-impact vulnerabilities our team writes the mechanism, detection and remediation steps.
We use this product, ask for helpChange log
- Fix✗ → ✓
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References
Vendor advisories and official records. Exploit/PoC links are deliberately left out.