# CVE-2020-16846: SaltStack Salt Shell Injection Vulnerability

> CVE-2020-16846: SaltStack Salt Shell Injection Vulnerability. CVSS 9.8 (CVSS 3.1), in CISA KEV.

Canonical: https://rewindex.com/cve/CVE-2020-16846
Last updated: 2025-10-21T23:35:33Z

- Published: 2020-11-06 07:27 UTC · Updated: 2025-10-21 23:35 UTC · Assigner: mitre
- CVSS: 9.8 (CVSS 3.1) · Severity: Critical · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- EPSS: 99.6%, 100th percentile (scored 2026-10-25)
- CISA KEV: yes, added 2021-11-03, federal due date 2022-05-03, ransomware use: Unknown

## Description

An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt through 3002. Sending crafted web requests to the Salt API, with the SSH client enabled, can result in shell injection.

## CISA required action

Apply updates per vendor instructions.

## Affected vendors and products

- SaltStack: Salt

## References

- [CVE record on cve.org](https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-16846)
- [NVD entry](https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-16846)
- [http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-11/msg00029.html](http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-11/msg00029.html)
- [http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/160039/SaltStack-Salt-REST-API-Arbitrary-Command-Execution.html](http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/160039/SaltStack-Salt-REST-API-Arbitrary-Command-Execution.html)
- [https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases](https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases)
- [https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/12/msg00007.html](https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/12/msg00007.html)
- [https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2022/01/msg00000.html](https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2022/01/msg00000.html)
- [https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/TPOGB2F6XUAIGFDTOCQDNB2VIXFXHWMA/](https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%2540lists.fedoraproject.org/message/TPOGB2F6XUAIGFDTOCQDNB2VIXFXHWMA/)
- [https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202011-13](https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202011-13)
- [https://www.debian.org/security/2021/dsa-4837](https://www.debian.org/security/2021/dsa-4837)
- [https://www.saltstack.com/blog/on-november-3-2020-saltstack-publicly-disclosed-three-new-cves/](https://www.saltstack.com/blog/on-november-3-2020-saltstack-publicly-disclosed-three-new-cves/)
- [https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1379/](https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1379/)
- [https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1380/](https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1380/)
- [https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1381/](https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1381/)
- [https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1382/](https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1382/)
- [https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1383/](https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-20-1383/)

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_Sources: CVE records from the CVE Program (cve.org). CVE® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. (https://www.cve.org/) This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. (https://nvd.nist.gov/) Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog from CISA. (https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog) EPSS scores from FIRST (Exploit Prediction Scoring System). (https://www.first.org/epss/)_


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Canonical: https://rewindex.com/cve/CVE-2020-16846 · Markdown: https://rewindex.com/cve/CVE-2020-16846.md · JSON: https://rewindex.com/api/v1/cves/CVE-2020-16846 · Data licensed CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) · Generated 2026-10-26T02:14:26.473Z