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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.9

CVE-2020-28972 json

SaltStack Salt Improper Certificate Validation

published 2021-02-27 5 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GHSA-w589-r335-4f55 , PYSEC-2021-74 , EUVD-2021-0236

cvss
5.9
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
3.1%
EPSS 3.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 87%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In SaltStack Salt before 3002.5, authentication to VMware vcenter, vsphere, and esxi servers (in the vmware.py files) does not always validate the SSL/TLS certificate.

Patch / fix

  • pypi salt 2015.8.10, 2015.8.13, 2016.3.4, 2016.3.6, 2016.3.8, 2016.11.3, 2016.11.5, 2016.11.10, 2017.7.8, 2019.2.0rc1, 2019.2.5, 2019.2.8, 3000.6, 3000.7, 3001.4, 3001.5, 3002.3, 3002.5
  • saltstack salt 2015.8.10, 2015.8.13, 2016.3.4, 2016.3.6, 2016.3.8, 2016.11.3, 2016.11.5, 2016.11.10, 2017.7.8, 2019.2.5, 2019.2.8, 3000.6, 3001.4, 3002.5
  • 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-2020-28972

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

  • release-notes-susemanager Manager Server 4.1 4.1.5.1-3.38.1
  • release-notes-susemanager-proxy Manager Retail Branch Server 4.1, Manager Proxy 4.1 4.1.5.1-3.26.1
  • release-notes-susemanager Manager Server 4.0 4.0.12.1-3.68.1
  • release-notes-susemanager-proxy Manager Retail Branch Server 4.0, Manager Proxy 4.0 4.0.12.1-0.16.52.1
  • salt SLES 15 SP1-BCL, SLE Module for Server Applications 15 SP2, SLE Module for Python 2 15 SP2 +9 more 3000-24.1
  • salt SLES 11 SP4-CLIENT-TOOLS, SLES 11 SP3-CLIENT-TOOLS 2016.11.10-43.69.1
  • salt SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15-LTSS +1 more 3000-5.106.1
  • salt SLE Point of Sale 12 SP2, SLE Module for Advanced Systems Management 12, Manager Client Tools 12 3000-46.129.1

suse advisories SUSE-RU-2021:0633-1SUSE-RU-2021:0632-1SUSE-SU-2021:0631-1SUSE-SU-2021:0630-1SUSE-SU-2021:14650-1SUSE-SU-2021:0628-1

  • salt openSUSE Leap 15.2 3000-lp152.3.27.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2021:0347-1

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-2020-28972 updated cvss 7.4

salt: Authentication to vCenter, vSphere, and ESXi servers does not always validate the SSL/TLS certificate

  • Red Hat Ceph Storage 2 salt, salt-minion
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”

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

Exploit prediction

3.08% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 87% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 2.0 4.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
GitHub 3.1 5.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
pypi salt
<2015.8.13
>=2016.3.0, <2016.11.5
>=2016.11.7, <2016.11.10
>=2017.5.0, <2017.7.8
>=2018.2.0, <=2018.3.5
>=2019.2.0, <2019.2.8
>=3000, <3000.7
>=3001, <3001.5
>=3002, <3002.3
<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, <2016.11.5
>=2017.7.0, <2017.7.8
>=2018.3.0rc1, <2019.2.0rc1
>=2019.2.0, <2019.2.5
>=2019.2.6, <2019.2.8
>=3000, <3000.6
>=3001, <3001.4
>=3002, <3002.5
2015.8.13
2016.11.5
2016.11.10
2017.7.8
2019.2.8
3000.7
3001.5
3002.3
2015.8.10
2016.3.4
2016.3.6
2016.3.8
2016.11.3
2019.2.0rc1
2019.2.5
3000.6
3001.4
3002.5

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-295 Improper Certificate Validation

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.