CVE-2020-11651
SaltStack Salt Authentication Bypass Vulnerability
Does this matter?
Known to be exploited in the wild (CISA KEV, CISA remediation deadline 3 May 2022). Treat as an emergency change: patch or isolate now, then hunt for prior compromise.
Description
An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt before 2019.2.4 and 3000 before 3000.2. The salt-master process ClearFuncs class does not properly validate method calls. This allows a remote user to access some methods without authentication. These methods can be used to retrieve user tokens from the salt master and/or run arbitrary commands on salt minions.
- CVSS 3.1
- 9.8 CRITICALCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- EPSS
- 96.61% probability · 100th percentile
- Public exploits
- 1 in Exploit-DB · first 5 May 2020
- CISA KEV
- Listed 3 November 2021 · due 3 May 2022
- Affected
- saltstack/salt · opensuse/leap · debian/debian linux · canonical/ubuntu linux · vmware/application remote collector
- Source
- cve@mitre.org
EPSS 96.6% since 30 October 2026; no change recorded yet. The dashed line is the ten per cent mark our analysts treat as “patch before the next change window”. Points are recorded when the score first appears and whenever it moves by a percentage point or more.
CISA notes
Apply updates per vendor instructions. https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-11651
Public exploits (1)
Entries in Exploit-DB that cite this CVE. Links go to the Exploit-DB page and to the file in the public repository; nothing is hosted here. A verified tick means the Exploit-DB team confirmed the exploit works against the stated version.
References
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-04/msg00047.htmlMailing List, Third Party Advisory
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-07/msg00070.htmlMailing List, Third Party Advisory
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/157560/Saltstack-3000.1-Remote-Code-Execution.htmlExploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/157678/SaltStack-Salt-Master-Minion-Unauthenticated-Remote-Code-Execution.htmlExploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
- http://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2020-0009.htmlThird Party Advisory
- https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/releases/2019.2.4.htmlVendor Advisory
- https://github.com/saltstack/salt/blob/v3000.2_docs/doc/topics/releases/3000.2.rstThird Party Advisory
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/05/msg00027.htmlMailing List, Third Party Advisory
- https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-salt-2vx545AGThird Party Advisory
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4459-1/Third Party Advisory
- https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4676Third Party Advisory
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-04/msg00047.htmlMailing List, Third Party Advisory
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-07/msg00070.htmlMailing List, Third Party Advisory
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/157560/Saltstack-3000.1-Remote-Code-Execution.htmlExploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/157678/SaltStack-Salt-Master-Minion-Unauthenticated-Remote-Code-Execution.htmlExploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
- http://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2020-0009.htmlThird Party Advisory
- https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/releases/2019.2.4.htmlVendor Advisory
- https://github.com/saltstack/salt/blob/v3000.2_docs/doc/topics/releases/3000.2.rstThird Party Advisory
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/05/msg00027.htmlMailing List, Third Party Advisory
- https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-salt-2vx545AGThird Party Advisory
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4459-1/Third Party Advisory
- https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4676Third Party Advisory
- https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2020-11651US Government Resource
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.