PYSEC-2013-13 CVE-2013-4438

Salt (aka SaltStack) before 0.17.1 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary YAML code via unspecified vectors.

Not rated yet PyPI

Severity: Not rated yet; No source has published a CVSS score yet
Exploit chance (EPSS): 2.12%; Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 81.84% of scored vulnerabilities.
Known exploited: No; Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness: —; Not classified
Fix: 0.17.1; Upgrade salt to this version or later

Description

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.

Affected versions

PyPI

Package	Vulnerable	Fixed in
salt	`< 0.17.1`	`0.17.1`

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 → `0.17.1`

pip

pip install --upgrade "salt>=0.17.1"

poetry

poetry add "salt>=0.17.1"

uv

uv add "salt>=0.17.1"

References

Timeline

Nov 5, 2013 Published
Nov 8, 2023 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

Is this in your code?

MergeHarbor checks every repository's dependencies against this database, ranks what matters by exploitability and reachability, routes it to the owning team and opens the fix pull request.

Check your repos with MergeHarbor