CVE-2020-16846 — SaltStack Salt Shell Injection Vulnerability
Overview
SaltStack Salt allows an unauthenticated user with network access to the Salt API to use shell injections to run code on the Salt API using the SSH client. This vulnerability affects any users running the Salt API.
Vulnerability details
- CVE ID
- CVE-2020-16846
- Vulnerability
- SaltStack Salt Shell Injection Vulnerability
- Vendor
- SaltStack
- Affected products
- SaltStack: Salt
- Severity
- HIGH
- Exploitation status
- Actively exploited in the wild (CISA KEV)
- Published
- 2021-11-03
Remediation guidance
CVE-2020-16846 is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog — U.S. federal civilian agencies are required to remediate it under Binding Operational Directive 22-01. Treat it as a priority for every environment.
Apply the vendor's official security update for SaltStack the affected product as soon as possible. Where a patch is unavailable, apply vendor mitigations or isolate/segment exposed systems.
Hunt for indicators of compromise tied to this vulnerability and confirm logging/EDR coverage on affected assets.
Authoritative references
Remediate CVE-2020-16846 — and stay ahead of the next one
CVE-2020-16846 is listed in the CISA KEV catalog as actively exploited — treat remediation as urgent. Scan your domain free to see whether CVE-2020-16846 and other SaltStack issues affect you and get a prioritized remediation report (full report from ₹999) — or stream the full feed of 1,600+ actively-exploited CVEs straight into your SOC.
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