CVE-2020-1734

A flaw was found in the pipe lookup plugin of ansible. Arbitrary commands can be run, when the pipe lookup plugin uses subprocess.Popen() with shell=True, by overwriting ansible facts and the variable is not escaped by quote plugin. An attacker could take advantage and run arbitrary commands by overwriting the ansible facts.

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

CVE-2020-1734 is rated Moderate Risk (42.2/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.44%). Review affected assets and schedule 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-2020-1734

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 2026-06-15 0.13% 0.44% +0.31%
2 2025-09-27 0.04% 0.13% +0.09%
3 2025-03-30 — 0.04% —

Full EPSS history (13 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2020-1734

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.4 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/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: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:L)
Might cause slowdowns, glitches, or partial disruption—not a full brick.
 0.8 6.0 [email protected]
7.4 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/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: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:L)
Might cause slowdowns, glitches, or partial disruption—not a full brick.
 0.8 6.0 [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-2020-1734

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2020-1734

OS Trackers for CVE-2020-1734

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2020-1734 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (ansible), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): open 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2020-1734
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-1734
suse high CVE-2020-1734 severity important: SUSE including 154 source package names (ansible-10-10.6.0-1.1, ansible-11-11.11.0-1.1, …), 323 product×package rows across 10 product lines (HPE Helion OpenStack 8, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3-TERADATA, … (10 product lines)): Fixed 323. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-1734/
ubuntu medium CVE-2020-1734 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (ansible), 17 status rows across 17 suites (bionic, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): ignored 9, needs-triage 8. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2020-1734

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2020-1734

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
redhat ansible_engine <= 2.7.16 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_engine:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_engine 2.8.8 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_engine:2.8.8:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_engine 2.9.5 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_engine:2.9.5:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_tower <= 3.3.4 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_tower:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_tower 3.4.5 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_tower:3.4.5:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_tower 3.5.5 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_tower:3.5.5:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_tower 3.6.3 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_tower:3.6.3:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2020-1734

cvelogic Threat Intelligence