Exploited. On CISA's list since 2021-11-03.
SaltStack Salt Authentication Bypass Vulnerability
CVE-2020-11651 · SaltStack Salt · Published 2020-04-30
How bad would it be?
9.8 out of 10
CVSS rates it critical: about as damaging as flaws get.
How likely is it to be used?
97%
Estimated chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, among the top 1% of all scored flaws (EPSS, 2026-10-29).
Is it already being used?
Yes
CISA has seen it exploited in real attacks. For US government agencies the fix is deadline passed 1641 days ago (2022-05-03).
What CISA says to do
Apply updates per vendor instructions.
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.
What the flaw is
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.
From the NVD.
Fixes and advisories
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Exploited flaws from CISA's KEV catalogue. Chance of exploitation from EPSS by FIRST. Descriptions and scores from the NVD. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.