CVE-2023-5115 | Ansible: malicious role archive can cause ansible-galaxy to overwrite arbitrary files

An absolute path traversal attack exists in the Ansible automation platform. This flaw allows an attacker to craft a malicious Ansible role and make the victim execute the role. A symlink can be used to overwrite a file outside of the extraction path.

Published: 2023-12-18 Last update: 2024-12-06 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2023-5115 is rated Moderate Risk (44.1/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.86%). 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-2023-5115

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 0.72% 0.86% +0.14%
2 2026-03-04 0.34% 0.72% +0.38%
3 2026-03-01 — 0.34% —

Full EPSS history (19 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-5115

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.3 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N 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: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:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 2.1 4.2 [email protected]
6.3 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N 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: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:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 2.1 4.2 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-5115

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2023-5115

GHSA-jpvw-p8pr-9g2x · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: pip — Ansible symlink attack vulnerability

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-5115

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2023-5115 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 2 source packages (ansible, ansible-core), 9 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 9. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2023-5115
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-5115
suse medium CVE-2023-5115 severity moderate: SUSE including 15 source package names (ansible, ansible-core, …), 24 product×package rows across 12 product lines (HPE Helion OpenStack 8, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4-LTSS, … (12 product lines)): Fixed 11, Known Not Affected 9, Will Not Fix 4. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-5115/
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-5115 medium priority: Ubuntu including 2 source packages (ansible, ansible-core), 24 status rows across 12 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): needs-triage 12, ignored 8, DNE 4. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-5115

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-5115

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
redhat ansible_automation_platform 1.2 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_automation_platform:1.2:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_automation_platform 2.3 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_automation_platform:2.3:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_automation_platform 2.4 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_automation_platform:2.4:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_inside 1.1 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_inside:1.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_inside 1.2 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_inside:1.2:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_developer 1.0 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_developer:1.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat ansible_developer 1.1 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_developer:1.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 10.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:10.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-5115

cvelogic Threat Intelligence