GHSA-xxw3-765m-f37p CVE-2021-25281 PYSEC-2021-50

SaltStack Salt Improper Authentication vulnerability

Critical PyPI

Severity: 9.8 / 10; Critical · CVSS 3.1
Exploit chance (EPSS): 73.13%; Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 99.46% of scored vulnerabilities.
Known exploited: No; Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness: CWE-287 Improper Authentication
Fix: 2015.8.13; Upgrade salt to this version or later

Description

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.

Affected versions

PyPI

Package	Vulnerable	Fixed in
salt	`< 2015.8.13`	`2015.8.13`
salt	`>= 2016.3.0, < 2016.11.5`	`2016.11.5`
salt	`>= 2016.11.7, < 2016.11.10`	`2016.11.10`
salt	`>= 2017.5.0, < 2017.7.8`	`2017.7.8`
salt	`>= 2018.2.0, <= 2018.3.5`	No fix yet
salt	`>= 2019.2.0, < 2019.2.8`	`2019.2.8`
salt	`>= 3000, < 3000.7`	`3000.7`
salt	`>= 3001, < 3001.5`	`3001.5`
salt	`>= 3002, < 3002.3`	`3002.3`
salt	`< 2015.8.10` `>= 2015.8.11, < 2015.8.13` `>= 2016.3.0, < 2016.3.4` `>= 2016.3.5, < 2016.3.6` `>= 2016.3.7, < 2016.3.8` `>= 2016.11.0, < 2016.11.3` `>= 2016.11.4, < 2016.11.5` `>= 2016.11.7, < 2016.11.10` `>= 2017.7.0, < 2017.7.8` `>= 2018.3.0rc1, < 2019.2.0rc1` `>= 2019.2.0, < 2019.2.5` `>= 2019.2.6, < 2019.2.8` `>= 3000, < 3000.6` `>= 3001, < 3001.4` `>= 3002, < 3002.5`	`2015.8.10` `2015.8.13` `2016.3.4` `2016.3.6` `2016.3.8` `2016.11.3` `2016.11.5` `2016.11.10` `2017.7.8` `2019.2.0rc1` `2019.2.5` `2019.2.8` `3000.6` `3001.4` `3002.5`

How to fix

Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.

salt PyPI → `2015.8.13`

pip

pip install --upgrade "salt>=2015.8.13"

poetry

poetry add "salt>=2015.8.13"

uv

uv add "salt>=2015.8.13"

Severity breakdown

CVSS 3.1 9.8

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

CWE-287: Improper Authentication

When an actor claims to have a given identity, the product does not prove or insufficiently proves that the claim is correct.

How to prevent it

Architecture and Design: Use an authentication framework or library such as the OWASP ESAPI Authentication feature.

References

Advisories

Write-ups

saltstack.com/blog/active-saltstack-cve-announced-2021-jan-21

Packages

github.com/saltstack/salt

Timeline

Feb 27, 2021 Published
Jun 10, 2026 Last updated by the source
Nov 1, 2026 Latest EPSS score

Advisory	Severity	Why it's related
CVE-2020-16846 SaltStack Salt Command Injection in netapi ssh client	Critical Known exploited	Also affects salt
CVE-2020-11652 SaltStack Salt is vulnerable Arbitrary Directory Access	High Known exploited	Also affects salt
CVE-2020-11651 SaltStack Salt Unauthenticated Remote Code Execution	Critical Known exploited	Also affects salt
GHSA-vcf3-26xf-fw4m Salt Authentication Protocol Version Downgrade Allows Minion Impersonation	Medium	Also affects salt
GHSA-77w2-v593-vxvv Salt junos Module Vulnerable to Code Injection via Specially Crafted YAML Payload	High	Also affects salt
GHSA-8pcp-r83j-fc92 Salt vulnerable to directory traversal attack in file receiving method	High	Also affects salt
GHSA-989c-m532-p2hv Salt's worker process vulnerable to denial of service through file read operation	Medium	Also affects salt
GHSA-7f3f-x5f5-79gw Salt's file contents overwrite the VirtKey class	Medium	Also affects salt

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