Vulnerability report

Exploited in the wild Confirmed confidence In CISA KEV

CVE-2020-11651

Salt

SaltStack / Salt

Watch CVE-2020-11651 Browse KEV feed
Severity
CVSS 9.8 · Critical
Confidence
Confirmed
Exploit status
Exploited in the wild
EPSS
96.6%
First observed
—
Last observed
—

Decision summary

What security teams need to know first

Direct answers before the deeper technical record.

What it is

CVE-2020-11651 is an unauthenticated vulnerability affecting SaltStack Salt. An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt before 2019.2.4 and 3000 before 3000.2. The salt-master process ClearFuncs class does not properly...

Is it exploited?

Yes. Previdian tracks this CVE as a known exploited vulnerability. Confidence is confirmed. Listed in CISA KEV.

Who is affected?

SaltStack / Salt.

What should we do?

Prioritize remediation. Validate affected assets and apply vendor fixes on an accelerated timeline.

Overview

An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt before 2019.2.4 and 3000 before 3000.2

An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt before 2019.2.4 and 3000 before 3000.2. The salt-master process ClearFuncs class does not properly validate method calls.

This allows a remote user to access some methods without authentication. These methods can be used to retrieve user tokens from the salt master and/or run arbitrary commands on salt minions.

View vendor advisory (opens in new tab)
Published
30 Apr 2020
Exploitation Reported
03 Nov 2021
Attack vector
Remote
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None

Tags

cisa metasploit

CVE References

Exploitation evidence

Why Previdian marks this CVE as exploited

Third-party attestation and first-party sensor observation are shown separately so teams can judge the evidence chain.

Exploited in the wild

CISA

Recorded 03 Nov 2021

A trusted third party reported exploitation.

Known exploited vulnerability sources

Per-source evidence links for KEV attestations are available through the Previdian Pro API.

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Source Added
CISA First 2021-11-03 00:00 UTC

Detection

Operational artifacts and observed signals

Make the evidence actionable in scanner, SOC, and edge-control workflows.

Observed signals

Request targets
User-Agents
Callback hosts
0
0
0

Request targets and User-Agents available in Pro. Callback host details available in Enterprise.

Virtual patch status

No Previdian virtual patch is currently available. Future rules ship for ModSecurity, Cloudflare, and AWS WAF.

Learn about virtual patches →

Scanner Artifacts

Scanner and exploit-framework references linked to this CVE.

Scanner Reference Detected
Metasploit https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework/blob/master/modules/exploits/linux/misc/saltstack_salt_unauth_rce.rb 28 Apr 2025

Risk and context

Severity, weaknesses, and research context

CVSS v3.1

9.8 Critical

Potential damage if exploited. Separate from whether attackers are using it.

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS

96.6%

Estimated chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Previdian's warning comes from evidence, not this score.

All CVSS Scores

CVSS v3.1 9.8 Critical

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CVSS v2.0 7.5 High

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Timeline

From disclosure to observed exploitation

  1. 15:02 UTC

    Metasploit module available

    Exploit module available

  2. 00:00 UTC

    Added to CISA KEV

    Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

  3. 16:58 UTC

    CVE published

    Vulnerability disclosed publicly

  4. 00:00 UTC

    CVE ID reserved

    Identifier reserved by the CNA

Pro API

Automate this intelligence

Confidence, exploit status, sensor telemetry, PoCs, scanner integrations, mentions, and tags are available programmatically for VM, SOC, and CTI workflows.

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  • Evidence confidence and provenance
  • First-party sensor telemetry
  • PoC and scanner references
  • Affected versions and enrichment
  • Automation-ready JSON delivery

GET /api/v2/pro/kevs/CVE-2020-11651

Free JSON includes basic KEV fields 
{
  "cve_id": "CVE-2020-11651",
  "confidence": "Confirmed",
  "cvss_score": 9.8,
  "cvss_estimated": false,
  "epss_score": 0.96614,
  "exploit_status": {
    "exploited_in_the_wild": true,
    "active_exploitation_observed": false
  },
  "sensor_telemetry": { "attempts": 0, "sensors": 0 }
}