CVE DATABASE / CVE-2020-11651

CVE-2020-11651

SaltStack Salt Authentication Bypass Vulnerability

CVSS 9.8 · CRITICAL ⚠ CISA KEV — ACTIVELY EXPLOITED

On the CISA KEV catalog

Confirmed exploited in the wild. Added 2021-11-03. Federal remediation due 2022-05-03.
Required action: Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Summary

An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt before 2019.2.4 and 3000 before 3000.2. The salt-master process ClearFuncs class does not properly validate method calls. This allows a remote user to access some methods without authentication. These methods can be used to retrieve user tokens from the salt master and/or run arbitrary commands on salt minions.

CVSS 3.1 breakdown

Base score	9.8 (CRITICAL)
Vector	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack vector	NETWORK
Attack complexity	LOW
Privileges required	NONE
User interaction	NONE
Scope	UNCHANGED
Confidentiality	HIGH
Integrity	HIGH
Availability	HIGH

Affected products

Saltstack saltOpensuse leapDebian debian linuxCanonical ubuntu linuxVmware application remote collector

Check this CVE live

Use our free CVE Lookup tool for the latest NVD record, or browse the full CISA KEV catalog.

References

Data: NIST NVD + CISA KEV. NVD last modified 2025-11-07. Always verify against the vendor advisory before acting.