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Fencer Vulns
high 7.5

CVE-2021-20228 json

Ansible Exposes Sensitive Information

published 2021-04-29 5 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GHSA-5rrg-rr89-x9mv , PYSEC-2021-1 , EUVD-2021-0004

cvss
7.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.0%
EPSS 2.0% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 81%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

A flaw was found in the Ansible Engine 2.9.18, where sensitive info is not masked by default and is not protected by the no_log feature when using the sub-option feature of the basic.py module. This flaw allows an attacker to obtain sensitive information. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to confidentiality.

Patch / fix

  • pypi ansible 2.8.19rc1, 2.9.18rc1, 2.9.19, 2.10.6rc1
  • ansible Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.10.7+merged+base+2.10.8+dfsg-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-20228

  • ansible rhev manager 4.4, rhev hypervisor 4.4, ansible engine 2.9 +1 more 2.9.18-1.el8ae
  • ansible ansible engine 2.9, ansible engine 2 2.9.18-1.el7ae
  • ansible-test ansible engine 2.9, ansible engine 2 2.9.18-1.el7ae
  • ansible-test ansible engine 2.9, ansible engine 2 2.9.18-1.el8ae

red hat advisories RHSA-2021:2180RHSA-2021:0664RHSA-2021:0663

  • rhnlib Manager Client Tools 15-BETA 5.0.1-159000.6.30.1
  • ansible Manager Client Tools 15-BETA 2.9.27-159000.3.9.1
  • grafana Manager Client Tools 15-BETA 9.5.8-159000.4.24.1
  • mgr-push Manager Client Tools 15-BETA 5.0.1-159000.4.21.1
  • spacecmd Manager Client Tools 15-BETA 5.0.1-159000.6.42.1
  • python-hwdata Manager Client Tools 15-BETA 2.3.5-159000.5.13.1
  • python-pyvmomi Manager Client Tools 15-BETA 6.7.3-159000.3.6.1
  • dracut-saltboot Manager Client Tools Beta for SLE Micro 5, Manager Client Tools 15-BETA 0.1.1681904360.84ef141-159000.3.30.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2024:0196-1SUSE-SU-2022:3178-1SUSE-SU-2021:2121-1

  • ansible-14 openSUSE Tumbleweed 14.6.0-1.1
  • ansible-13 openSUSE Tumbleweed 13.7.0-1.1
  • ansible-12 openSUSE Tumbleweed 12.2.0-1.1
  • ansible-11 openSUSE Tumbleweed 11.11.0-1.1
  • ansible-10 openSUSE Tumbleweed 10.6.0-1.1
  • ansible-9 openSUSE Tumbleweed 9.8.0-1.1
  • ansible Package Hub 15 SP3, openSUSE Leap 15.3 2.9.21-bp153.2.3.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:12447-1openSUSE-SU-2026:10944-1openSUSE-SU-2025:15753-1openSUSE-SU-2025:15605-1openSUSE-SU-2024:14536-1openSUSE-SU-2024:14244-1

  • ansible CBL-Mariner 2.0 2.12.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-6304

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

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-2021-20228 updated cvss 5.0

ansible: basic.py no_log with fallback option

  • Red Hat Ansible Tower 3 ansible
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 1.2 for RHEL 7 ansible-automation-platform/platform-resource-runner-rhel7 v0.1.0-15, ansible-automation-platform/platform-resource-operator-bundle v0.1.1-1, ansible-automation-platform/platform-resource-rhel7-operator v0.1.0-12
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:1079
  • Red Hat Ansible Engine 2 for RHEL 7 ansible 2.9.18-1.el7ae, ansible-test 2.9.18-1.el7ae Red Hat Ansible Engine 2 for RHEL 8 ansible 2.9.18-1.el8ae, ansible-test 2.9.18-1.el8ae
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:0663
  • Red Hat Ansible Engine 2.9 for RHEL 7 Server ansible 2.9.18-1.el7ae, ansible-test 2.9.18-1.el7ae Red Hat Ansible Engine 2.9 for RHEL 8 ansible 2.9.18-1.el8ae, ansible-test 2.9.18-1.el8ae
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:0664
  • Red Hat Virtualization 4 Management Agent for RHEL 7 Hosts ansible 2.9.18-1.el8ae Red Hat RHEL-8-RHEV-S-4.4 - Red Hat Virtualization Engine 4.4 ansible 2.9.18-1.el8ae
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:2180
  • Red Hat Virtualization 4 Management Agent for RHEL 7 Hosts ovirt-ansible-collection 1.4.2-1.el8ev, python-ovirt-engine-sdk4 4.4.12-1.el8ev, python3-ovirt-engine-sdk4 4.4.12-1.el8ev Red Hat Virtualization 4 Tools for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 ovirt-ansible-collection 1.4.2-1.el8ev, python-ovirt-engine-sdk4 4.4.12-1.el8ev, rubygem-ovirt-engine-sdk4 4.4.1-1.el8ev, python3-ovirt-engine-sdk4 4.4.12-1.el8ev Red Hat RHEL-8-RHEV-S-4.4 - Red Hat Virtualization Engine 4.4 ovirt-ansible-collection 1.4.2-1.el8ev, python-ovirt-engine-sdk4 4.4.12-1.el8ev, rubygem-ovirt-engine-sdk4 4.4.1-1.el8ev, python3-ovirt-engine-sdk4 4.4.12-1.el8ev
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

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

2.04% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 81% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
GitHub 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
pypi ansible
>=2.10.0a1, <2.10.6rc1
>=2.9.0a1, <2.9.18rc1
<2.8.19rc1
<2.9.19
2.10.6rc1
2.9.18rc1
2.8.19rc1
2.9.19

Affected products

  • n/a ansible

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-200 Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor
  • CWE-522 Insufficiently Protected Credentials

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.