CVE-2017-12791

Directory traversal vulnerability in minion id validation in SaltStack Salt before 2016.11.7 and 2017.7.x before 2017.7.1 allows remote minions with incorrect credentials to authenticate to a master via a crafted minion ID.

Published: 2017-08-23 Last update: 2026-05-13 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2017-12791 is rated High Risk (65.3/100): CVSS Critical severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.93%). High exploitation likelihood—assess exposure and prioritize remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2017-12791

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-03-15 1.42% 0.93% -0.49%
2 2025-11-21 1.25% 1.42% +0.17%
3 2025-11-18 — 1.25% —

Full EPSS history (12 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2017-12791

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
9.8 3.0 CRITICAL
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 3.9 5.9 [email protected]
7.5 2.0 HIGH
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
 10.0 6.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2017-12791

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2017-12791

GHSA-xxvj-8g5m-4qgw · Severity: critical · Ecosystem: pip — SaltStack Salt Directory traversal vulnerability in minion id validation

OS Trackers for CVE-2017-12791

vendor priority summary link
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2017-12791
suse medium CVE-2017-12791 severity moderate: SUSE including 398 source package names (amazon/suse-sles-15-sp1-chost-byos-v20210304-hvm-ssd-x86_64, amazon/suse-sles-15-sp1-chost-byos-v20220127-hvm-ssd-x86_64, …), 496 product×package rows across 51 product lines (Container caasp/v4/salt-api, Container caasp/v4/salt-master, … (51 product lines)): Known Affected 231, Fixed 218, Known Not Affected 47. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2017-12791/
ubuntu medium CVE-2017-12791 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (salt), 14 status rows across 14 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, trusty, upstream, xenial, zesty): not-affected 8, released 3, ignored 2, DNE 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2017-12791

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2017-12791

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
saltstack salt <= 2016.11.6 cpe:2.3:a:saltstack:salt:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
saltstack salt 2017.7.0 cpe:2.3:a:saltstack:salt:2017.7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2017-12791

URL Tags
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/100384 Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=872399 Issue Tracking Patch Third Party Advisory
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1482006 Issue Tracking Patch Third Party Advisory
https://docs.saltstack.com/en/2016.11/topics/releases/2016.11.7.html Patch Release Notes Vendor Advisory
https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/releases/2017.7.1.html Patch Release Notes Vendor Advisory
https://github.com/saltstack/salt/pull/42944 Issue Tracking Patch Third Party Advisory
cvelogic Threat Intelligence