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CVE-2025-6723: Chef InSpec lets local users gain higher privileges

CVE-2025-6723 · published 9 months ago

Summary

Versions of Chef InSpec up to 5.23 and earlier than 7.0.107 create named pipes on Windows with permissions that are too open. A person with local access could tamper with these pipes to run code under the InSpec account, potentially gaining elevated rights or disrupting operations. Update to the latest version of Chef InSpec or apply the recommended configuration changes to tighten pipe permissions.

Original advisory text

Untrusted user data can lead to privilege escalation

Chef InSpec versions up to 5.23 and before 7.0.107 creates named pipes with overly permissive default Windows access controls. A local attacker may interfere with the pipe connection process and exploit the insufficient access restrictions to assume the InSpec execution context, potentially resulting in elevated privileges or operational disruption.

This issue affects Chef Inspec: through 5.23 and before 7.0.107

References

https://docs.chef.io/inspec/ URL
https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2025/6xxx/CVE-2025-6723.j... Vendor Advisory
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-6723 Vendor Advisory
https://github.com/inspec/inspec Product

Fix within

Internet-facing 60 days

Internal At next upgrade

Not known to be exploited
Needs hands-on effort to exploit
Gives an attacker partial control

Severity

6.9 Medium

Exploitation

<1% chance of attack within 30 days

Type

CWE-269Improper Privilege Management

CWE-287Improper Authentication

Timeline

Published30 Jan 2026

Updated27 Oct 2026

First seen7 Mar 2026

Sources

CVE-2025-6723 · NVD

CVE-2025-6723 · OSV

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