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Fencer Vulns
critical 9.8

CVE-2020-16846 kev in the critical feed json

SaltStack Salt Command Injection in netapi ssh client

published 2020-11-06 6 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GHSA-qr38-h96j-2j3w , PYSEC-2020-104 , EUVD-2020-0173

cvss
9.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Exploited
added 2021-11-03
epss
99.6%
EPSS 99.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 99.9%
public exploits
1
Metasploit, plus a Nuclei check

Summary

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.

Patch / fix

cisa required action Apply updates per vendor instructions.

  • pypi salt 2015.8.10, 2015.8.13, 2016.3.4, 2016.3.6, 2016.3.8, 2016.11.3, 2016.11.6, 2016.11.10, 2017.7.4, 2017.7.8, 2018.3.5, 2019.2.5, 2019.2.6, 3000.3, 3000.4, 3001.2, 3002.1
  • saltstack salt 2015.8.10, 2015.8.13, 2016.3.4, 2016.3.6, 2016.3.8, 2016.11.3, 2016.11.6, 2016.11.10, 2017.7.4, 2017.7.8, 2018.3.5, 2019.2.5, 3000.3
  • salt Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 0.17.5+ds-1ubuntu0.1~esm4
  • salt Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 2015.8.8+ds-1ubuntu0.1+esm2
  • salt Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTS 2017.7.4+dfsg1-1ubuntu18.04.2+esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2020-16846

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • spacewalk-java Manager Server 3.2 2.8.78.31-3.56.1
  • py26-compat-salt Manager Server 3.2 2016.11.10-6.41.1
  • spacewalk-java Manager Server Module 4.0 4.0.39-3.45.1
  • py26-compat-salt Manager Server Module 4.0 2016.11.10-10.17.1
  • salt SLES 11 SP4-CLIENT-TOOLS, SLES 11 SP3-CLIENT-TOOLS 2016.11.10-43.63.1
  • cobbler SLES 11 SP4-CLIENT-TOOLS, SLES 11 SP3-CLIENT-TOOLS 2.2.2-0.68.12.1
  • spacecmd SLES 11 SP4-CLIENT-TOOLS, SLES 11 SP3-CLIENT-TOOLS 4.1.8-18.72.1
  • mgr-daemon SLES 11 SP4-CLIENT-TOOLS, SLES 11 SP3-CLIENT-TOOLS 4.1.3-5.20.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2020:3251-1SUSE-SU-2020:3250-1SUSE-SU-2020:14538-1SUSE-SU-2020:3245-1SUSE-SU-2020:3244-1SUSE-SU-2020:3243-1

  • salt openSUSE Leap 15.1 3000-lp151.5.30.1
  • salt openSUSE Leap 15.2 3000-lp152.3.15.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2020:1868-1openSUSE-SU-2020:1833-1

  • salt Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +9 more 3002-r1

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2020-16846

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2020-16846 updated cvss 9.8

salt: sending crafted web requests to the Salt API, with the SSH client enabled, can result in shell injection

  • Red Hat Ceph Storage 2 salt, salt-minion
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Red Hat has investigated whether a possible mitigation exists for this issue, and has not been able to identify a practical example. Please update as soon as possible.”

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Timeline

  1. First public exploit (Metasploit exploit/linux/http/saltstack_salt_api_cmd_exec)
  2. Published
  3. Added to CISA KEV
  4. CISA patch deadline
  5. CISA SSVC: exploitation active

Known exploited

Added
5 y ago
Patch by
2022-05-03 (4 y ago)
Ransomware
Not known
Required action
Apply updates per vendor instructions.
Vendor, product
SaltStack, Salt
CISA name
SaltStack Salt Shell Injection Vulnerability

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Active, exploited in the wild
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
total
Assessed
21 mo ago

Exploit prediction

99.59% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 99.9% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CNA 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.5 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
GitHub 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
pypi salt
<2015.8.13
>=2016.3.0, <2016.3.8
>=2016.11.0, <2016.11.10
>=2017.5.0, <2017.7.8
>=2018.2.0, <2018.3.5
>=2019.2.0, <2019.2.6
>=3000.0, <3000.4
>=3001, <3001.2
>=3002, <3002.1
<2015.8.10
>=2015.8.11, <2015.8.13
>=2016.3.0, <2016.3.4
>=2016.3.5, <2016.3.6
>=2016.3.7, <2016.3.8
>=2016.11.0, <2016.11.3
>=2016.11.4, <2016.11.6
>=2016.11.7, <2016.11.10
>=2017.7.0, <2017.7.4
>=2017.7.5, <2017.7.8
>=2018.3.0rc1, <2018.3.5
>=2019.2.0, <2019.2.5
>=3000, <3000.3
2015.8.13
2016.3.8
2016.11.10
2017.7.8
2018.3.5
2019.2.6
3000.4
3001.2
3002.1
2015.8.10
2016.3.4
2016.3.6
2016.11.3
2016.11.6
2017.7.4
2019.2.5
3000.3

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-78 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.