SaltStack Salt Shell Injection Vulnerability

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.

CheckOps priority index

9.3/10 Patch within 24 h

Severity9.8

Probability10.0

Exploitation4/5

Severity = CVSS. Probability = EPSS (FIRST). Exploitation = public signals: KEV, EUVD, ransomware, EPSS above 10 %, no account required.

EPSS · today 99.6% higher than 99.9% of CVEs

CVSS 3.1 9.8 AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:

Exploited for 1,826 days 03 Nov 2021

CISA due date 03 May 2022 for US federal agencies

Exploitation probability EPSS · FIRST

EPSS probability (%)Percentile among all CVEs

Exploitation signals 4 / 5

KEV catalog (CISA)03 Nov 2021
Exploited in EUVD (ENISA)03 Nov 2021
Used by ransomwareno
EPSS above 10 %99.6%
No account, over the networkyes

What to do

Fix

Apply the vendor’s fix as soon as it is available.

CISA guidance: Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Meanwhile

Take the service off the internet or restrict access to it, watch the logs and look for signs of compromise.

Manufacturers (CRA)

Exploited vulnerability in your product: early warning to ENISA within 24 h, then notification within 72 h (Article 14 of the Cyber Resilience Act). The CRA explained

Affected products

Salt

Weaknesses (CWE)

CWE-78

Open source packages OSV

Affected libraries according to OSV, with fixed versions.

Timeline

06 Nov 2020
Published
03 Nov 2021
Exploitation reported (ENISA)
03 Nov 2021
Added to the KEV catalog
03 May 2022
CISA remediation due date
26 Sept 2026
EPSS peak: 99.6%

References

Other exploited vulnerabilities from the same vendor

CVE-2020-11652SaltStack Salt Path Traversal Vulnerability
7.0 · Background exploitation
CVE-2020-11651SaltStack Salt Authentication Bypass Vulnerability
9.2 · Background exploitation