dbcve.org
FedoraOperating system · Fedoraproject

CVE-2021-25282

CRITICAL · 9.1 CVSS v3.1 Published 2021-02-27
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 2015.8.10 / 2015.8.13 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
High EPSS Public exploit Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

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 · unedited
An issue was discovered in through SaltStack Salt before 3002.5. The salt.wheel.pillar_roots.write method is vulnerable to directory traversal.

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
How this class of weakness works · CWE-22

A file path is built from user input without being confined, so sequences like “../” let an attacker step outside the intended directory. That can expose configuration, credentials, or source code, and in the worst case lets an attacker write files where they shouldn't. A durable fix resolves and canonicalises the path, then rejects anything that escapes a known-safe base directory.

General guidance for the path traversal class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

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
FedoraOperating system
Affected:= 32= 33= 34
Debian LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 9.0= 10.0= 11.0
SaltApplication
Affected:< 2015.8.10>= 2015.8.11, < 2015.8.13>= 2016.3.0, < 2016.3.4>= 2016.3.5, < 2016.3.6>= 2016.3.7, < 2016.3.8>= 2016.3.9, < 2016.11.3>= 2016.11.4, < 2016.11.5>= 2016.11.7, < 2016.11.10>= 2017.5.0, < 2017.7.8>= 2018.2.0, <= 2018.3.5>= 2019.2.0, < 2019.2.5>= 2019.2.6, < 2019.2.8

CVSS 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
None
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H

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 · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 2015.8.10 / 2015.8.13 / 2016.3.4 or later
Fixed in 2015.8.102015.8.132016.3.4
Recommended fix High confidence

Salt 3002.5 or later (e.g., 3002.5, 3003.x, or latest stable 3004.x/3005.x)

  1. 1. Backup your current Salt configuration and pillar data
  2. 2. Upgrade the Salt master and minion packages to version 3002.5 or later using your distribution's package manager (e.g., dnf upgrade salt-master salt-minion for Fedora, apt-get install salt-master salt-minion for Debian)
  3. 3. Restart the Salt master and minion services (systemctl restart salt-master; systemctl restart salt-minion)
  4. 4. Verify the installed version is 3002.5 or later using: salt --version or salt-master --version
  5. 5. Confirm the pillar_roots.write method no longer accepts directory traversal sequences (../) in the path parameter
Caveat Minor: Review wheel module permissions as the vulnerable method had unsafe write capabilities; ensure custom integrations don't rely on the previous insecure behavior

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $2,300. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-25282 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

Get it on GitHub Scan in the browser

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-25282 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.

What this is

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.

What belongs here
  • 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