SaltStack Salt Authentication Bypass Vulnerability (CVE-2020-11651)
Severity: critical · Patch status: patched · Since 2021-11-03 · CVE-2020-11651
SaltStack Salt contains an authentication bypass vulnerability in the salt-master process ClearFuncs due to improperly validating method calls. The vulnerability allows a remote user to access some methods without authentication, which can be used to retrieve user tokens from the salt master and/or run commands on salt minions. Salt users who follow fundamental internet security guidelines and best practices are not affected by this vulnerability. CISA added CVE-2020-11651 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on Nov 3, 2021, which means attackers are exploiting it in the wild.
What to do
- Apply updates per vendor instructions.
- US federal agencies must remediate by May 3, 2022 (BOD 22-01); treat that as the outer limit.
Sources
All live incidents on Threat Watch