CVE-2020-1733

Exp

A race condition flaw was found in Ansible Engine 2.7.17 and prior, 2.8.9 and prior, 2.9.6 and prior when running a playbook with an unprivileged become user. When Ansible needs to run a module with become user, the temporary directory is created in /var/tmp. This directory is created with "umask 77 && mkdir -p <dir>"; this operation does not fail if the directory already exists and is owned by another user. An attacker could take advantage to gain control of the become user as the target directory can be retrieved by iterating '/proc/<pid>/cmdline'.

Published: 2020-03-11 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2020-1733 is rated Exploit Available (50/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.04%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

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

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2020-1733

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2020-1733

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 2025-11-21 0.06% 0.04% -0.03%
2 2025-11-18 0.03% 0.06% +0.03%
3 2025-03-17 — 0.03% —

Full EPSS history (10 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2020-1733

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.0 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:L 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:H)
Even with access, the exploit needs extra luck, timing, or a fussy environment to actually work.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:L)
Might cause slowdowns, glitches, or partial disruption—not a full brick.
 0.8 3.7 [email protected]
5.0 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:L 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:H)
Even with access, the exploit needs extra luck, timing, or a fussy environment to actually work.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:L)
Might cause slowdowns, glitches, or partial disruption—not a full brick.
 0.8 3.7 [email protected]
3.7 2.0 LOW
AV:L/AC:H/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
Access complexity (AC:H)
Exploitation requires uncommon or highly specific conditions.
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.
 1.9 6.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2020-1733

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2020-1733

GHSA-g4mq-6fp5-qwcf · Severity: low · Ecosystem: pip — Ansible vulnerable to Exposure of Resource to Wrong Sphere and Insecure Temporary File

OS Trackers for CVE-2020-1733

vendor priority summary link
alpine medium CVE-2020-1733: 2 source package rows (ansible, ansible-base); 5 state rows across 5 repos (3.10-main, 3.11-main, 3.12-main, edge-community, edge-main); fixed 5, open 0. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2020-1733
debian not yet assigned CVE-2020-1733 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-2020-1733
gentoo normal CVE-2020-1733: 1 GLSA(s) (202006-11), 1 atom(s) (app-admin/ansible); latest impact normal. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2020-1733
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-1733
suse medium CVE-2020-1733 severity moderate: SUSE including 223 source package names (ansible-10-10.6.0-1.1, ansible-11-11.11.0-1.1, …), 355 product×package rows across 11 product lines (HPE Helion OpenStack 8, HPE Helion OpenStack Cloud 8, … (11 product lines)): Fixed 353, Known Not Affected 2. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-1733/
ubuntu medium CVE-2020-1733 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (ansible), 16 status rows across 16 suites (bionic, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 11, released 4, ignored 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2020-1733

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2020-1733

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
redhat ansible <= 2.7.16 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible >= 2.8.0, < 2.8.8 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible >= 2.9.0, <= 2.9.5 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_tower <= 3.3.4 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_tower:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_tower >= 3.3.5, <= 3.4.5 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_tower:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_tower >= 3.5.0, <= 3.5.5 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_tower:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_tower >= 3.6.0, <= 3.6.3 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_tower:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat cloudforms_management_engine 5.0 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:cloudforms_management_engine:5.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat openstack 13 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:openstack:13:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 30 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:30:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 31 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:31:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 32 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:32:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 8.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 10.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:10.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2020-1733

URL Tags
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2020-1733 Issue Tracking Vendor Advisory
https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/67791 Exploit Third Party Advisory
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/05/msg00005.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/DKPA4KC3OJSUFASUYMG66HKJE7ADNGFW/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/MRRYUU5ZBLPBXCYG6CFP35D64NP2UB2S/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/WQVOQD4VAIXXTVQAJKTN7NUGTJFE2PCB/
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202006-11 Third Party Advisory
https://www.debian.org/security/2021/dsa-4950 Third Party Advisory
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