CVE-2020-16846
Actively exploited. CVE-2020-16846 is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03) — exploitation has been observed in the wild, and US federal agencies are required to remediate it under BOD 22-01. Treat patching as urgent.
Public exploit code is available. Proof-of-concept or working exploit code for CVE-2020-16846 is indexed in Metasploit, GitHub PoC and Nuclei. Expect opportunistic scanning and exploitation attempts — prioritize remediation.
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.
CSIRTS triage
- What
- SaltStack Salt allows an unauthenticated user to use shell injections to run code on the Salt API.
- Who is affected
- Any users running the Salt API with network access.
- Urgency
- Immediate remediation is necessary as the vulnerability is actively exploited and rated critical.
- Action
- Upgrade to the patched version of SaltStack Salt.
AI-assisted analysis generated from the source advisory — verify against the original.
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Exploitation outlook
- Exploitation confirmedAlready exploited in the wild (CISA KEV) — the prediction phase is over. Patch now. Riskier than 100% of all EPSS-scored CVEs.
Exploit availability
Public exploit or proof-of-concept code for CVE-2020-16846 is indexed in these free datasets. Available exploit code raises real-world risk independent of the CVSS score.
- MetasploitA Metasploit Framework module targets this CVE — weaponized, point-and-click exploitation.look it up ↗
- GitHub PoCPublic proof-of-concept repositories on GitHub reference this CVE.look it up ↗
- NucleiA nuclei-templates detection/PoC template exists for this CVE.look it up ↗
Advisory coverage (1)
- criticalexploitedCVE-2020-16846: SaltStack Salt Shell Injection Vulnerabilitycisa-kev · 2021-11-03
External references
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[](https://www.csirts.com/cve/CVE-2020-16846)