CVE DATABASE / CVE-2020-16846
CVE-2020-16846
SaltStack Salt Shell Injection 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 through 3002. Sending crafted web requests to the Salt API, with the SSH client enabled, can result in shell injection.
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 |
Weakness type (CWE)
Affected products
Saltstack saltDebian debian linuxFedoraproject fedoraOpensuse leap
Check this CVE live
Use our free CVE Lookup tool for the latest NVD record, or browse the full CISA KEV catalog.
References
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-11/msg00029.html
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/160039/SaltStack-Salt-REST-API-Arbitrary-Command-Execution.html
- https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/12/msg00007.html
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2022/01/msg00000.html
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/TPOGB2F6XUAIGFDTOCQDNB2VIXFXHWMA/
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202011-13
- https://www.debian.org/security/2021/dsa-4837
- https://www.saltstack.com/blog/on-november-3-2020-saltstack-publicly-disclosed-three-new-cves/
- https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1379/
- https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1380/
- https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1381/
- https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1382/
- https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1383/
- https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2020-16846
Data: NIST NVD + CISA KEV. NVD last modified 2025-11-07. Always verify against the vendor advisory before acting.