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HIGH severity

CVE-2020-10684 — ansible

HIGHFix: ansible/ansible@0b4788a

CVE-2020-10684 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.1) Code Injection vulnerability in ansible. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for ansible — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Code Injection, Race Condition, and Execution with Unnecessary Privileges in Ansible

Also known asGHSA-p62g-jhg6-v3rqPYSEC-2020-207
Published
Updated
Affected
3 pkgs
Patched
3 / 3
Exploits
1 known
Exploitation data as of Oct 10, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
0.3%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs25th percentile — riskier than 25% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%0.28%0.56%0.85%0.0%0.3%Apr 26Aug 26Oct 26

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

CVE-2020-10684 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.

Where this sits among everything scored

Of 385,987 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.

Real-World Exposure

3 pkgs affected
🐍ansible🐍ansible🐍ansible

Real-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

A flaw was found in Ansible Engine, all versions 2.7.x, 2.8.x and 2.9.x prior to 2.7.17, 2.8.9 and 2.9.6 respectively, when using ansible_facts as a subkey of itself and promoting it to a variable when inject is enabled, overwriting the ansible_facts after the clean. An attacker could take advantage of this by altering the ansible_facts, such as ansible_hosts, users and any other key data which would lead into privilege escalation or code injection.

Affected Packages

3 total 3 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
🐍PyPIansible≥ 2.7.0a1&&< 2.7.172.7.17pip install --upgrade 'ansible==2.7.17'
🐍PyPIansible≥ 2.8.0a1&&< 2.8.112.8.11pip install --upgrade 'ansible==2.8.11'
🐍PyPIansible≥ 2.9.0a1&&< 2.9.72.9.7pip install --upgrade 'ansible==2.9.7'

Affected Products

5 products · 12 configurations
OS
debian linuxdebian
1 version
10.0
OS
fedorafedoraproject
3 versions
303132
Application
ansibleredhat
≥ 2.9.0 && < 2.9.6
range
Application
ansible towerredhat
≥ 3.6.0 && ≤ 3.6.3
range
Application
openstackredhat
2 versions
1013
Exploits & PoCs
1

Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.

A flaw was found in Ansible Engine, all versions 2.7.x, 2.8.x and 2.9.x …

1665891.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.netAPIMay 2024

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for ansible, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update ansible to 2.7.17 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-10684 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. Workarounds

    Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does.

Fixing This On Your OS

If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.

Red HatImportant

* Ansible Engine 2.7.16, 2.8.10, and 2.9.6 as well as previous versions are affected. * Ansible Tower 3.4.5, 3.5.5 and 3.6.3 as well as previous versions are affected. * Red Hat Gluster Storage and Red Hat Ceph Storage no longer maintains their own version of Ansible. The fix will be consumed from core Ansible. But we…

Workaround published by Red Hat
Currently, there is not a known mitigation except avoiding the functionality of using ansible_facts as a subkey.
Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2020-10684 (CC BY 4.0)
ProductFixed inAdvisory
Red Hat Ansible Engine 2.7 for RHEL 7ansible-0:2.7.17-1.el7aeRHSA-2020:1544
Red Hat Ansible Engine 2.8 for RHEL 7ansible-0:2.8.11-1.el7aeRHSA-2020:1543
Red Hat Ansible Engine 2.9 for RHEL 7ansible-0:2.9.7-1.el7aeRHSA-2020:1541
Red Hat Ansible Engine 2 for RHEL 7ansible-0:2.9.7-1.el7aeRHSA-2020:1542
Red Hat Ansible Tower 3.4 for RHEL 7ansible-tower-34/ansible-tower-memcached:1.4.15-28RHBA-2020:0547
Red Hat Ansible Tower 3.5 for RHEL 7ansible-tower-35/ansible-tower:3.5.6-1RHBA-2020:1539

Frequently Asked Questions

A flaw was found in Ansible Engine, all versions 2.7.x, 2.8.x and 2.9.x prior to 2.7.17, 2.8.9 and 2.9.6 respectively, when using ansible_facts as a subkey of itself and promoting it to a variable when inject is enabled, overwriting the ansible_facts after the clean. An attacker could take advantage of this by altering the ansible_facts, such as ansible_hosts, users and any other key data which would lead into privilege escalation or code injection.
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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CVE-2020-10684: ansible RCE — Fixed in 2.7.17