CVE-2017-7893
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedIn SaltStack Salt before 2016.3.6, compromised salt-minions can impersonate the salt-master.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceThis vulnerability allows compromised salt-minions to impersonate the salt-master, effectively letting an attacker who has already compromised a minion to take control of the master server. This represents a critical authentication bypass where the trust relationship between minion and master is broken, enabling full infrastructure compromise.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data< 2016.3.6CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Check if Salt is installedRun 'salt --version' or 'salt-minion --version' to see if Salt software is present on the systemAffected if Command returns a version number indicating Salt is installed
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Determine the installed Salt versionUse 'rpm -q salt' or 'dpkg -l salt' (depending on package manager) to query the exact installed package versionAffected if Version displayed is less than 2016.3.6
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Verify if salt-master service is runningRun 'systemctl status salt-master' or check for salt-master process with 'ps aux | grep salt-master'Affected if Salt-master service is active and version is below 2016.3.6
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Check salt-master configurationInspect /etc/salt/master configuration file for enabled authentication settings and review any custom auth verification rulesAffected if Salt-master is configured with default auth settings and version is vulnerable
Your environment is affected if SaltStack Salt is installed with a salt-master component running and the installed version is earlier than 2016.3.6.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
dbcve · scoped2016.3.6
Upgrade to SaltStack Salt version 2016.3.6 or later. If immediate patching is not feasible, isolate the salt-master behind strict firewall rules and implement network segmentation to limit exposure of the master to potentially compromised minions.
2016.3.6
- Backup your current Salt configuration and state files
- Upgrade Salt to version 2016.3.6 or later
- Restart the salt-master and salt-minion services
- Verify the upgrade was successful by checking the Salt version
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $3,072.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-7893 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2017-7893 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.
- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data