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GHSA-fjcf-3j3r-78rp CVE-2025-0628 PYSEC-2026-1546

LiteLLM Has an Improper Authorization Vulnerability

High PyPI
Severity
8.1 / 10
High · CVSS 3.0
Exploit chance (EPSS)
0.34%
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 27.99% of scored vulnerabilities.
Known exploited
No
Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness
CWE-266 Incorrect Privilege Assignment
CWE-285 Improper Authorization
Fix
1.61.15
Upgrade litellm to this version or later

Description

An improper authorization vulnerability exists in the main-latest version of BerriAI/litellm. When a user with the role 'internal_user_viewer' logs into the application, they are provided with an overly privileged API key. This key can be used to access all the admin functionality of the application, including endpoints such as '/users/list' and '/users/get_users'. This vulnerability allows for privilege escalation within the application, enabling any account to become a PROXY ADMIN.

Affected versions

PyPI

PackageVulnerableFixed in
litellm
< 1.61.15
1.61.15
litellm
< 1.61.15
1.61.15

How to fix

Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.

litellm PyPI → 1.61.15

pip
pip install --upgrade "litellm>=1.61.15"
poetry
poetry add "litellm>=1.61.15"
uv
uv add "litellm>=1.61.15"

Severity breakdown

CVSS 3.0 8.1

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
None

Weakness

CWE-266: Incorrect Privilege Assignment

A product incorrectly assigns a privilege to a particular actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor.

How to prevent it
  • Architecture and Design, Operation: Very carefully manage the setting, management, and handling of privileges. Explicitly manage trust zones in the software.
  • Architecture and Design, Operation: Run your code using the lowest privileges that are required to accomplish the necessary tasks [REF-76]. If possible, create isolated accounts with limited privileges that are only used for a single task. That way, a successful attack will not immediately give the attacker access to the rest of the software or its environment. For example, database applications rarely need to run as the database administrator, especially in day-to-day operations.

CWE-285: Improper Authorization

The product does not perform or incorrectly performs an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action.

How to prevent it
  • Architecture and Design: Divide the product into anonymous, normal, privileged, and administrative areas. Reduce the attack surface by carefully mapping roles with data and functionality. Use role-based access control (RBAC) to enforce the roles at the appropriate boundaries. Note that this approach may not protect against horizontal authorization, i.e., it will not protect a user from attacking others with the same role.
  • Architecture and Design: Ensure that you perform access control checks related to your business logic. These checks may be different than the access control checks that you apply to more generic resources such as files, connections, processes, memory, and database records. For example, a database may restrict access for medical records to a specific database user, but each record might only be intended to be accessible to the patient and the patient's doctor.
  • Architecture and Design: Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid. For example, consider using authorization frameworks such as the JAAS Authorization Framework [REF-233] and the OWASP ESAPI Access Control feature [REF-45].
  • Architecture and Design: For web applications, make sure that the access control mechanism is enforced correctly at the server side on every page. Users should not be able to access any unauthorized functionality or information by simply requesting direct access to that page. One way to do this is to ensure that all pages containing sensitive information are not cached, and that all such pages restrict access to requests that are accompanied by an active and authenticated session token associated with a user who has the required permissions to access that page.
  • System Configuration, Installation: Use the access control capabilities of your operating system and server environment and define your access control lists accordingly. Use a "default deny" policy when defining these ACLs.

References

Timeline

  1. Published
  2. Last updated by the source
  3. Latest EPSS score
AdvisorySeverityWhy it's related
GHSA-7488-6r32-c95q
LiteLLM: MCP Authentication Bypass via OAuth2 Passthrough Fallback
High Known exploited Also affects litellm
GHSA-v4p8-mg3p-g94g
LiteLLM: Authenticated command execution via MCP stdio test endpoints
High Known exploited Also affects litellm
GHSA-r75f-5x8p-qvmc
LiteLLM has SQL Injection in Proxy API key verification
Critical Known exploited Also affects litellm
GHSA-g5ff-637f-6q2m
LiteLLM: internal_user_viewer arbitrary local file read via `vertex_ai_credentials`
High Also affects litellm
GHSA-hhww-mrg2-969h
LiteLLM vulnerable to reflected XSS in /sso/debug/callback
Medium Also affects litellm
GHSA-7hp6-4w63-5g45
LiteLLM: Privilege Escalation to Proxy Admin via Cross-Domain Reuse of the Salt Key
Critical Also affects litellm
GHSA-hx8v-g79f-8w5f
LiteLLM Proxy has server-side request forgery via the `user_config` request parameter
Medium Also affects litellm
GHSA-3cv6-jpf6-8222
LiteLLM: Authenticated SSRF and provider-credential exfiltration via unvalidated request-body routing parameters
Medium Also affects litellm
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