Recent discoveries have unveiled two significant security vulnerabilities within the Spring Framework and Spring Security, identified as CVE-2025-41248 and CVE-2025-41249. These flaws pose a substantial risk to enterprise applications by potentially allowing unauthorized access to protected resources.
Understanding the Vulnerabilities
Both vulnerabilities are associated with the use of Spring Security’s `@EnableMethodSecurity` feature in combination with method-level annotations like `@PreAuthorize` and `@PostAuthorize`. In scenarios where service interfaces or abstract base classes utilize unbounded generics, the framework’s annotation detection mechanism may fail to recognize security annotations on overridden methods. This oversight can lead to unauthorized access to endpoints that should be secured.
Key Points:
1. Authorization Bypass Vulnerability (CVE-2025-41248):
– Affected Versions: Spring Security versions 6.4.0 through 6.4.9 and 6.5.0 through 6.5.3.
– Issue: When a parameterized superclass defines a secured method signature without the subclass redeclaring the relevant annotation, the framework’s metadata resolver fails to traverse the generic type hierarchy correctly. This flaw allows attackers to invoke secured operations defined solely on a generic interface, effectively bypassing authorization checks that rely on expressions like `@PreAuthorize(hasRole(‘ADMIN’))`.
– Severity: Medium, with a CVSS 3.1 base score of 6.5.
2. Annotation Detection Vulnerability (CVE-2025-41249):
– Affected Versions: Spring Framework core modules in versions 5.3.0 through 5.3.44, 6.1.0 through 6.1.22, and 6.2.0 through 6.2.10.
– Issue: The annotation detection flaw hinders the recognition of method annotations used for authorization or auditing when defined on a generic base class. Without proper annotation metadata, Spring Security cannot enforce method-level security constraints, leaving sensitive service methods unprotected.
– Severity: Medium, with a CVSS 3.1 base score of 6.5.
Root Cause Analysis
Both vulnerabilities originate from improper handling of unbounded generics during annotation introspection. This mismanagement causes the runtime to overlook security metadata, treating sensitive service methods as if they were unprotected.
Mitigation Strategies
To address these vulnerabilities, the Spring maintainers have released updated versions for all affected modules:
– Spring Security: Upgrade to versions 6.4.10 or 6.5.4.
– Spring Framework: Upgrade to versions 5.3.45, 6.1.23, or 6.2.11.
For teams unable to upgrade immediately, a temporary workaround involves declaring all secured methods directly in the concrete class, rather than relying on inherited annotations from generic superclasses. Consistent use of `@PreAuthorize`, `@PostAuthorize`, and other method security annotations on each implementing class will prevent unauthorized access.
Recommendations for Development Teams
– Review Service Interfaces: Examine service interfaces for the use of `@EnableMethodSecurity` in conjunction with generics.
– Update Static Analysis Tools: Ensure that static analysis tools and custom annotation scanning scripts are updated to correctly detect annotated methods across type hierarchies.
– Prioritize Upgrades: Integrate these upgrades into CI/CD pipelines promptly to prevent inadvertent exposure of protected APIs.
– Continuous Validation: Implement continuous validation of method-level security and conduct code reviews focusing on generic service patterns to strengthen authorization enforcement and guard against similar flaws.
Conclusion
The discovery of CVE-2025-41248 and CVE-2025-41249 underscores the importance of meticulous security practices in software development. By promptly addressing these vulnerabilities through upgrades and adhering to the recommended mitigation strategies, organizations can safeguard their applications against potential unauthorized access and maintain robust security postures.
