Ansible TowerApplication · Redhat
CVE-2020-14337
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 · uneditedA data exposure flaw was found in Tower, where sensitive data was revealed from the HTTP return error codes. This flaw allows an unauthenticated, remote attacker to retrieve pages from the default organization and verify existing usernames. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality.
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 · moderate confidenceAn information disclosure vulnerability in Tower allows unauthenticated remote attackers to enumerate valid usernames by analyzing HTTP error responses. The application returns different error codes or messages for existing versus non-existing users, enabling attackers to verify which usernames are registered in the default organization.
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
Ansible TowerApplication
= 3.0.0CVSS 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
- Changed
- Confidentiality
- Low
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N
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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Identify installed Ansible Tower versionAccess the Tower UI and navigate to Settings > About, or query the API endpoint /api/v2/ping to retrieve the version numberAffected if the version displayed is exactly 3.0.0
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Test unauthenticated username enumerationSend HTTP POST requests to /api/v2/authentication/login/ with two different username values: one known to exist and one random username. Capture the HTTP status code and response body for each requestAffected if the responses differ in HTTP status code or error message content between the known-valid and invalid usernames, revealing which account exists
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Inspect error response consistencyExamine the raw HTTP responses from the Tower login endpoint when submitting a valid username versus an invalid usernameAffected if the valid username returns a different error message (such as 'Invalid password') while the invalid username returns a distinct message (such as 'User does not exist') or different HTTP 400 vs 401 status codes
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Verify organization user enumerationUse the password reset or account recovery endpoint to test whether entering different usernames produces observable differences in response timing or contentAffected if the application indicates whether a username exists in the default organization through distinct error messages or response codes
A user is affected if running Ansible Tower version 3.0.0 and the application returns different HTTP responses for existing versus non-existing usernames, enabling enumeration of valid accounts.
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.
From vendor dataNormalize all authentication-related error responses to return identical HTTP status codes and generic error messages regardless of whether a username exists, preventing username enumeration.
Fix this in Ansible Tower
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation3.0 h
- Testing1.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,032.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2020-14337 — 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-2020-14337 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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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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