EGI SVG Advisories

Advisory-SVG-CVE-2020-11651

Title:   EGI SVG 'ALERT' [TLP:WHITE] CRITICAL risk Remote code execution
         vulnerabilities in Salt master CVE [EGI-SVG-CVE-2020-11651]

Date:    2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-06-05 - [TLP:WHITE] and placed on wiki

Affected software and risk
==========================

CRITICAL risk multiple vulnerabilities concerning Salt

Package : Salt Master
CVE ID  : CVE-2020-11651, CVE-2020-11652
Bug ID  :

Saltstack has announced a new release to fix some CRITICAL vulnerabilities,
including allowing remote code execution by [R 1].
We are aware that these vulnerabilities are being actively exploited.

Actions required/recommended
============================

Any site running Salt should Upgrade to Salt v3000.2 / v2019.2.4 [R 2] urgently
if they have not done so already.

Sites should also follow SaltStack's best practices for securing Salt [R 3]


Affected software details
=========================

Salt master version < v3000.2 and < v2019.2.4


More information
================

SVG is issuing this alert as we are aware that some sites in the infrastructure
are using Salt and the issue is described by the software providers as
'CRITICAL' [R 1].  From their description this fits with our criteria for a
vulnerability we would assess as 'CRITICAL'.
We are also aware that these vulnerabilities are currently being actively
exploited, so sites running Salt need to take action urgently.

TLP and URL
===========

** WHITE information - Unlimited distribution
 - see https://go.egi.eu/tlp for distribution restrictions **

URL:   https://advisories.egi.eu/Advisory-SVG-CVE-2020-11651

Minor updates may be made without re-distribution to the sites


Comments
========

Comments or questions should be sent to svg-rat  at  mailman.egi.eu

If you find or become aware of another vulnerability which is relevant to EGI
you may report it by e-mail to

report-vulnerability at egi.eu

the EGI Software Vulnerability Group will take a look according to the
procedure defined in [R 4]

Note that this is undergoing revision to fully handle vulnerabilities in the
EOSC-hub era.


References
==========

[R 1] https://help.saltstack.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043056331-New-SaltStack-Release-Critical-Vulnerability

[R 2] https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases

[R 3] https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/hardening.html#general-hardening-tips

[R 4] https://documents.egi.eu/public/ShowDocument?docid=3145

Credit
======

SVG was alerted to this vulnerability by Mischa Salle

Timeline
========

Yyyy-mm-dd  [EGI-SVG-2020-CVE-2020-11651]

2020-04-30 Shane Filus alerted the community
2020-05-03 SVG alerted to this issue by Mischa Salle
2020-05-04 Agreed it is 'CRITICAL' for any affected site
2020-05-04 SVG Alerted sites, as we are aware that some sites in our
           infrastructure use Salt
2020-06-05 Advisory placed on wiki

Context
=======

This advisory has been prepared as part of the effort to fulfil EGI SVG's
purpose "To minimize the risk to the EGI infrastructure arising from software
vulnerabilities"

The risk is that assessed by the group, according to the EGI SVG issue handling
procedure [R 4]  in the context of how the software is used in the EGI
infrastructure. It is the opinion of the group, we do not guarantee it to be
correct.  The risk may also be higher or lower in other deployments depending
on how the software is used.

This advisory is subject to the Creative commons license
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ and the EGI https://www.egi.eu/
Software Vulnerability Group must be credited.

Note that the SVG issue handling procedure is currently under review, to take
account of the increasing inhomogeneity of the EGI infrastructure and the
services in the EOSC-hub catalogue.

On behalf of the EGI SVG,