Vulnerability Monitor

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CVE-2020-16846


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.


Security Impact Summary

This vulnerability carries a CRITICAL severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 9.8, indicating it can be exploited remotely over the network with relatively low complexity without requiring user interaction and does not require pre-existing privileges . The vulnerability impacts confidentiality (data exposure), integrity (unauthorized modifications), and availability (service disruption) for affected systems. Impacting 4 products from saltstack, from debian, from fedoraproject and 1 other, organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

Reported in 2020, this vulnerability emerged during an era marked by increased sophistication in supply chain attacks, cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) security challenges. Security practices during this period emphasized zero-trust architectures, container security, and API protection.


Published

2020-11-06T08:15:13.283

Last Modified

2025-11-07T19:32:05.420

Status

Analyzed

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv3.1: 9.8 (CRITICAL)

CVSSv2 Vector

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

  • Access Vector: NETWORK
  • Access Complexity: LOW
  • Authentication: NONE
  • Confidentiality Impact: PARTIAL
  • Integrity Impact: PARTIAL
  • Availability Impact: PARTIAL
Exploitability Score

10.0

Impact Score

6.4

Weaknesses
  • Type: Primary
    CWE-78
  • Type: Secondary
    CWE-78

Affected Vendors & Products
Type Vendor Product Version/Range Vulnerable?
Application saltstack salt < 2015.8.10 Yes
Application saltstack salt < 2015.8.13 Yes
Application saltstack salt < 2016.3.4 Yes
Application saltstack salt < 2016.3.6 Yes
Application saltstack salt < 2016.3.8 Yes
Application saltstack salt < 2016.11.3 Yes
Application saltstack salt < 2016.11.6 Yes
Application saltstack salt < 2016.11.10 Yes
Application saltstack salt < 2017.7.4 Yes
Application saltstack salt < 2017.7.8 Yes
Application saltstack salt < 2018.3.5 Yes
Application saltstack salt < 2019.2.5 Yes
Application saltstack salt < 3000.3 Yes
Application saltstack salt 3001 Yes
Application saltstack salt 3002 Yes
Operating System debian debian_linux 9.0 Yes
Operating System debian debian_linux 10.0 Yes
Operating System fedoraproject fedora 31 Yes
Operating System opensuse leap 15.1 Yes

References

How SecUtils Interprets This CVE

SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For saltstack's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.