CVE-2017-12791 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Path Traversal vulnerability in salt. A fix is available for salt — see the affected versions and patch details below.
SaltStack Salt Directory traversal vulnerability in minion id validation
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
salt🐍saltReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Directory traversal vulnerability in minion id validation in SaltStack Salt before 2016.11.7 and 2017.7.x before 2017.7.1 allows remote minions with incorrect credentials to authenticate to a master via a crafted minion ID.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | salt | all versions | 2016.11.7pip install --upgrade 'salt==2016.11.7' |
| 🐍PyPI | salt | ≥ 2017.7.0&&< 2017.7.1 | 2017.7.1pip install --upgrade 'salt==2017.7.1' |
Affected Products
saltsaltstackDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for salt, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update salt to 2016.11.7 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2017-12791 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Resolve every user-supplied path to its canonical form and reject anything that escapes the intended directory, and run the component under an account that has no read or write access outside the directory it legitimately serves.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2017-12791 in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.