CVE-2018-16859

Execution of Ansible playbooks on Windows platforms with PowerShell ScriptBlock logging and Module logging enabled can allow for 'become' passwords to appear in EventLogs in plaintext. A local user with administrator privileges on the machine can view these logs and discover the plaintext password. Ansible Engine 2.8 and older are believed to be vulnerable.

Published: 2018-11-29 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2018-16859 is rated Low Risk (25.4/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.10%). 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-2018-16859

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 0.26% 0.10% -0.15%
2 2025-03-29 0.10% 0.26% +0.15%
3 2025-03-17 — 0.10% —

Full EPSS history (6 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2018-16859

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
4.2 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N 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:H)
They need powerful rights—admin, root, or similar—before this pays off.
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:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 0.6 3.6 [email protected]
4.4 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N 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:H)
They need powerful rights—admin, root, or similar—before this pays off.
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:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 0.8 3.6 [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-2018-16859

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2018-16859

GHSA-v735-2pp6-h86r · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: pip — Ansible Logs Passwords If PowerShell ScriptBlock is Enabled

OS Trackers for CVE-2018-16859

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2018-16859 unimportant 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-2018-16859
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2018-16859
suse medium CVE-2018-16859 severity moderate: SUSE including 115 source package names (ansible, ansible-10-10.6.0-1.1, …), 243 product×package rows across 11 product lines (HPE Helion OpenStack 8, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.0, … (11 product lines)): Fixed 242, Known Not Affected 1. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2018-16859/

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2018-16859

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
redhat ansible_engine < 2.5.13 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_engine:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_engine >= 2.6.0, < 2.6.10 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_engine:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_engine >= 2.7.0, < 2.7.4 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_engine:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_engine >= 2.7.5, <= 2.8 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_engine:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2018-16859

cvelogic Threat Intelligence