Focus on saltstack vulnerabilities and metrics.
Last updated: 08 Mar 2025, 23:25 UTC
This page consolidates all known Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) associated with saltstack. We track both calendar-based metrics (using fixed periods) and rolling metrics (using gliding windows) to give you a comprehensive view of security trends and risk evolution. Use these insights to assess risk and plan your patching strategy.
For a broader perspective on cybersecurity threats, explore the comprehensive list of CVEs by vendor and product. Stay updated on critical vulnerabilities affecting major software and hardware providers.
Total saltstack CVEs: 48
Earliest CVE date: 05 Nov 2013, 18:55 UTC
Latest CVE date: 05 Sep 2023, 11:15 UTC
Latest CVE reference: CVE-2023-20898
30-day Count (Rolling): 0
365-day Count (Rolling): 0
Calendar-based Variation
Calendar-based Variation compares a fixed calendar period (e.g., this month versus the same month last year), while Rolling Growth Rate uses a continuous window (e.g., last 30 days versus the previous 30 days) to capture trends independent of calendar boundaries.
Month Variation (Calendar): 0%
Year Variation (Calendar): -100.0%
Month Growth Rate (30-day Rolling): 0.0%
Year Growth Rate (365-day Rolling): -100.0%
Average CVSS: 5.67
Max CVSS: 10.0
Critical CVEs (≥9): 4
| Range | Count |
|---|---|
| 0.0-3.9 | 8 |
| 4.0-6.9 | 26 |
| 7.0-8.9 | 17 |
| 9.0-10.0 | 4 |
These are the five CVEs with the highest CVSS scores for saltstack, sorted by severity first and recency.
Git Providers can read from the wrong environment because they get the same cache directory base name in Salt masters prior to 3005.2 or 3006.2. Anything that uses Git Providers with different environments can get garbage data or the wrong data, which can lead to wrongful data disclosure, wrongful executions, data corruption and/or crash.
Salt masters prior to 3005.2 or 3006.2 contain a DOS in minion return. After receiving several bad packets on the request server equal to the number of worker threads, the master will become unresponsive to return requests until restarted.
Buffer Overflow vulnerability in Saltstack v.3003 and before allows attacker to execute arbitrary code via the func variable in salt/salt/modules/status.py file. NOTE: this is disputed by third parties because an attacker cannot influence the eval input
An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt in versions before 3002.9, 3003.5, 3004.2. PAM auth fails to reject locked accounts, which allows a previously authorized user whose account is locked still run Salt commands when their account is locked. This affects both local shell accounts with an active session and salt-api users that authenticate via PAM eauth.
An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt in versions before 3002.8, 3003.4, 3004.1. When configured as a Master-of-Masters, with a publisher_acl, if a user configured in the publisher_acl targets any minion connected to the Syndic, the Salt Master incorrectly interpreted no valid targets as valid, allowing configured users to target any of the minions connected to the syndic with their configured commands. This requires a syndic master combined with publisher_acl configured on the Master-of-Masters, allowing users specified in the publisher_acl to bypass permissions, publishing authorized commands to any configured minion.
An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt in versions before 3002.8, 3003.4, 3004.1. Job publishes and file server replies are susceptible to replay attacks, which can result in an attacker replaying job publishes causing minions to run old jobs. File server replies can also be re-played. A sufficient craft attacker could gain root access on minion under certain scenarios.
An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt in versions before 3002.8, 3003.4, 3004.1. A minion authentication denial of service can cause a MiTM attacker to force a minion process to stop by impersonating a master.
An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt in versions before 3002.8, 3003.4, 3004.1. Salt Masters do not sign pillar data with the minion’s public key, which can result in attackers substituting arbitrary pillar data.
An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt before 3003.3. The salt minion installer will accept and use a minion config file at C:\salt\conf if that file is in place before the installer is run. This allows for a malicious actor to subvert the proper behaviour of the given minion software.
An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt before 3003.3. A user who has control of the source, and source_hash URLs can gain full file system access as root on a salt minion.
In SaltStack Salt 2016.9 through 3002.6, a command injection vulnerability exists in the snapper module that allows for local privilege escalation on a minion. The attack requires that a file is created with a pathname that is backed up by snapper, and that the master calls the snapper.diff function (which executes popen unsafely).
CWE - CWE-287: Improper Authentication vulnerability in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP 3; openSUSE Tumbleweed allows local attackers to execute arbitrary code via salt without the need to specify valid credentials. This issue affects: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP 3 salt versions prior to 3002.2-3. openSUSE Tumbleweed salt version 3002.2-2.1 and prior versions. This issue affects: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP 3 salt versions prior to 3002.2-3. openSUSE Tumbleweed salt version 3002.2-2.1 and prior versions.
An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt before 3002.5. The salt-api's ssh client is vulnerable to a shell injection by including ProxyCommand in an argument, or via ssh_options provided in an API request.
An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt before 3002.5. Sending crafted web requests to the Salt API can result in salt.utils.thin.gen_thin() command injection because of different handling of single versus double quotes. This is related to salt/utils/thin.py.
In SaltStack Salt before 3002.5, eauth tokens can be used once after expiration. (They might be used to run command against the salt master or minions.)
An issue was discovered in through SaltStack Salt before 3002.5. salt.modules.cmdmod can log credentials to the info or error log level.
An issue was discovered in through SaltStack Salt before 3002.5. The jinja renderer does not protect against server side template injection attacks.
An issue was discovered in through SaltStack Salt before 3002.5. The salt.wheel.pillar_roots.write method is vulnerable to directory traversal.
An issue was discovered in through SaltStack Salt before 3002.5. salt-api does not honor eauth credentials for the wheel_async client. Thus, an attacker can remotely run any wheel modules on the master.
In SaltStack Salt before 3002.5, when authenticating to services using certain modules, the SSL certificate is not always validated.
In SaltStack Salt before 3002.5, authentication to VMware vcenter, vsphere, and esxi servers (in the vmware.py files) does not always validate the SSL/TLS certificate.
An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt before 3002.5. The minion's restartcheck is vulnerable to command injection via a crafted process name. This allows for a local privilege escalation by any user able to create a files on the minion in a non-blacklisted directory.
In SaltStack Salt through 3002, salt-netapi improperly validates eauth credentials and tokens. A user can bypass authentication and invoke Salt SSH.
The TLS module within SaltStack Salt through 3002 creates certificates with weak file permissions.
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.
An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt before 2019.2.4 and 3000 before 3000.2. The salt-master process ClearFuncs class allows access to some methods that improperly sanitize paths. These methods allow arbitrary directory access to authenticated users.
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.
In SaltStack Salt through 2019.2.0, the salt-api NET API with the ssh client enabled is vulnerable to command injection. This allows an unauthenticated attacker with network access to the API endpoint to execute arbitrary code on the salt-api host.
SaltStack RSA Key Generation allows remote users to decrypt communications
SaltStack Salt 2018.3, 2019.2 is affected by: SQL Injection. The impact is: An attacker could escalate privileges on MySQL server deployed by cloud provider. It leads to RCE. The component is: The mysql.user_chpass function from the MySQL module for Salt. The attack vector is: specially crafted password string. The fixed version is: 2018.3.4.
SaltStack Salt before 2017.7.8 and 2018.3.x before 2018.3.3 allow remote attackers to bypass authentication and execute arbitrary commands via salt-api(netapi).
Directory Traversal vulnerability in salt-api in SaltStack Salt before 2017.7.8 and 2018.3.x before 2018.3.3 allows remote attackers to determine which files exist on the server.
In SaltStack Salt before 2016.3.6, compromised salt-minions can impersonate the salt-master.
SaltStack Salt before 2016.3.8, 2016.11.x before 2016.11.8, and 2017.7.x before 2017.7.2 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service via a crafted authentication request.
Directory traversal vulnerability in minion id validation in SaltStack Salt before 2016.3.8, 2016.11.x before 2016.11.8, and 2017.7.x before 2017.7.2 allows remote minions with incorrect credentials to authenticate to a master via a crafted minion ID. NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2017-12791.
salt before 2015.5.5 leaks git usernames and passwords to the log.
Salt-api in SaltStack Salt before 2015.8.13, 2016.3.x before 2016.3.5, and 2016.11.x before 2016.11.2 allows arbitrary command execution on a salt-master via Salt's ssh_client.
When using the local_batch client from salt-api in SaltStack Salt before 2015.8.13, 2016.3.x before 2016.3.5, and 2016.11.x before 2016.11.2, external authentication is not respected, enabling all authentication to be bypassed.
Salt before 2014.7.6 does not verify certificates when connecting via the aliyun, proxmox, and splunk modules.
Directory traversal vulnerability in minion id validation in SaltStack Salt before 2016.11.7 and 2017.7.x before 2017.7.1 allows remote minions with incorrect credentials to authenticate to a master via a crafted minion ID.
win_useradd, salt-cloud and the Linode driver in salt 2015.5.x before 2015.5.6, and 2015.8.x before 2015.8.1 leak password information in debug logs.
The salt-ssh minion code in SaltStack Salt 2016.11 before 2016.11.4 copied over configuration from the Salt Master without adjusting permissions, which might leak credentials to local attackers on configured minions (clients).
modules/chef.py in SaltStack before 2014.7.4 does not properly handle files in /tmp.
modules/serverdensity_device.py in SaltStack before 2014.7.4 does not properly handle files in /tmp.
Salt before 2015.8.11 allows deleted minions to read or write to minions with the same id, related to caching.
Salt before 2015.5.10 and 2015.8.x before 2015.8.8, when PAM external authentication is enabled, allows attackers to bypass the configured authentication service by passing an alternate service with a command sent to LocalClient.
The state.sls function in Salt before 2015.8.3 uses weak permissions on the cache data, which allows local users to obtain sensitive information by reading the file.
Salt 2015.8.x before 2015.8.4 does not properly handle clear messages on the minion, which allows man-in-the-middle attackers to execute arbitrary code by inserting packets into the minion-master data stream.
Multiple unspecified vulnerabilities in Salt (aka SaltStack) before 2014.1.10 allow local users to have an unspecified impact via vectors related to temporary file creation in (1) seed.py, (2) salt-ssh, or (3) salt-cloud.
The salt master in Salt (aka SaltStack) 0.11.0 through 0.17.0 does not properly drop group privileges, which makes it easier for remote attackers to gain privileges.
Salt (aka SaltStack) before 0.15.0 through 0.17.0 allows remote authenticated minions to impersonate arbitrary minions via a crafted minion with a valid key.
Salt (aka SaltStack) before 0.17.1 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary YAML code via unspecified vectors. NOTE: the vendor states that this might not be a vulnerability because the YAML to be loaded has already been determined to be safe.
Unspecified vulnerability in salt-ssh in Salt (aka SaltStack) 0.17.0 has unspecified impact and vectors related to "insecure Usage of /tmp."
The default configuration for salt-ssh in Salt (aka SaltStack) 0.17.0 does not validate the SSH host key of requests, which allows remote attackers to have unspecified impact via a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack.
Salt (aka SaltStack) 0.15.0 through 0.17.0 allows remote authenticated users who are using external authentication or client ACL to execute restricted routines by embedding the routine in another routine.