CVE-2018-16837

Ansible "User" module leaks any data which is passed on as a parameter to ssh-keygen. This could lean in undesirable situations such as passphrases credentials passed as a parameter for the ssh-keygen executable. Showing those credentials in clear text form for every user which have access just to the process list.

Published: 2018-10-23 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2018-16837 is rated Low Risk (34.4/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.04%). Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

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-2018-16837

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 2025-03-30 0.05% 0.04% -0.01%
2 2025-03-29 0.03% 0.05% +0.03%
3 2025-03-17 — 0.03% —

Full EPSS history (7 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2018-16837

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.8 3.0 HIGH
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
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:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
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.
 1.8 5.9 [email protected]
7.8 3.0 HIGH
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
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:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
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.
 1.8 5.9 [email protected]
2.1 2.0 LOW
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
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:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 3.9 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2018-16837

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2018-16837

GHSA-hwrm-63v2-42g4 · Severity: high · Ecosystem: pip — Ansible Leaks Data Passed to ssh-keygen

OS Trackers for CVE-2018-16837

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2018-16837 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (ansible), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2018-16837
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2018-16837
suse high CVE-2018-16837 severity important: SUSE including 120 source package names (ansible-10-10.6.0-1.1, ansible-11-11.11.0-1.1, …), 251 product×package rows across 13 product lines (HPE Helion OpenStack 8, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3-TERADATA, … (13 product lines)): Fixed 251. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2018-16837/
ubuntu medium CVE-2018-16837 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (ansible), 19 status rows across 19 suites (bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 14, released 3, ignored 1, needed 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2018-16837

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2018-16837

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
redhat ansible_engine 2.0 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_engine:2.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_engine 2.5 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_engine:2.5:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_engine 2.6 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_engine:2.6:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_engine 2.7 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_engine:2.7:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_tower 3.3.0 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_tower:3.3.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 8.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 9.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:9.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
suse package_hub — cpe:2.3:a:suse:package_hub:-:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2018-16837

URL Tags
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-04/msg00021.html Third Party Advisory
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-06/msg00077.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-08/msg00020.html
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/105700 Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:3460 Vendor Advisory
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:3461 Vendor Advisory
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:3462 Vendor Advisory
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:3463 Vendor Advisory
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:3505 Vendor Advisory
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2018-16837 Issue Tracking Vendor Advisory
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/11/msg00012.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
https://usn.ubuntu.com/4072-1/
https://www.debian.org/security/2019/dsa-4396 Third Party Advisory
https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2018-16837 Vendor Advisory
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