CVEs / CVE-2020-16846
CVE-2020-16846: SaltStack Salt Shell Injection Vulnerability
- Known exploited in the CISA KEV catalog since 3 Nov 2021
- critical 9.8 CVSS 3.1 (NVD)
- EPSS 99.5% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 99% of CVEs (30 Oct 2026)
- Last changed at its sources
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Summary
SaltStack Salt allows an unauthenticated user with network access to the Salt API to use shell injections to run code on the Salt API using the SSH client. This vulnerability affects any users running the Salt API.
Description
An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt through 3002. Sending crafted web requests to the Salt API, with the SSH client enabled, can result in shell injection.
Affected and fixed versions
| Product | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| n/a n/a | n/a | — |
| Product | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| salt (PyPI) | before 2015.8.13 | 2015.8.13 |
| salt (PyPI) | from 2016.3.0, before 2016.3.8 | 2016.3.8 |
| salt (PyPI) | from 2016.11.0, before 2016.11.10 | 2016.11.10 |
| salt (PyPI) | from 2017.5.0, before 2017.7.8 | 2017.7.8 |
| salt (PyPI) | from 2018.2.0, before 2018.3.5 | 2018.3.5 |
| salt (PyPI) | from 2019.2.0, before 2019.2.6 | 2019.2.6 |
| salt (PyPI) | from 3000.0, before 3000.4 | 3000.4 |
| salt (PyPI) | from 3001, before 3001.2 | 3001.2 |
| salt (PyPI) | from 3002, before 3002.1 | 3002.1 |
Package versions from GHSA-qr38-h96j-2j3w.
Exploitation
| In CISA KEV since | 3 Nov 2021 |
|---|---|
| Due date for US federal agencies | 3 May 2022 |
| Used in ransomware campaigns | Unknown |
| Required action | Apply updates per vendor instructions. |
Severity
| CVSS 3.1 | 9.8 criticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HScored by NVD |
|---|---|
| Weakness | CWE-78 |
References
- CVE-2020-16846 on NVD
- CVE-2020-16846 in the CISA KEV catalog
- CVE-2020-16846 on OSV
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-11/msg00029.html Mailing List, Third Party Advisory
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/160039/SaltStack-Salt-REST-API-Arbitrary-Command-Execution.html Exploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
- https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases Release Notes
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/12/msg00007.html Mailing List, Third Party Advisory
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2022/01/msg00000.html Mailing List, Third Party Advisory
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/TPOGB2F6XUAIGFDTOCQDNB2VIXFXHWMA/ Release Notes
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202011-13 Third Party Advisory
- https://www.debian.org/security/2021/dsa-4837 Mailing List, Third Party Advisory
- https://www.saltstack.com/blog/on-november-3-2020-saltstack-publicly-disclosed-three-new-cves/ Broken Link, Vendor Advisory
- https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1379/ Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
- https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1380/ Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
- https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1381/ Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
- https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1382/ Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
- https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1383/ Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
- https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2020-16846 US Government Resource
Sources
Exploitation status from the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. EPSS scores from FIRST. Descriptions, severity and references from the National Vulnerability Database. Open-source package versions from OSV (CC-BY 4.0). Text is shown as each source states it; Stackurity does not edit it. Check the vendor's advisory before acting.
This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.