CVE-2020-10685 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.5) vulnerability in ansible. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2020-10685 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Exposure of Resource to Wrong Sphere and Insecure Temporary File in Ansible
Real-World Exposure
ansible🐍ansible🐍ansibleReal-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 affecting Ansible Engine versions 2.7.x before 2.7.17 and 2.8.x before 2.8.11 and 2.9.x before 2.9.7 as well as Ansible Tower before and including versions 3.4.5 and 3.5.5 and 3.6.3 when using modules which decrypts vault files such as assemble, script, unarchive, win_copy, aws_s3 or copy modules. The temporary directory is created in /tmp leaves the s ts unencrypted. On Operating Systems which /tmp is not a tmpfs but part of the root partition, the directory is only cleared on boot and the decryp emains when the host is switched off. The system will be vulnerable when the system is not running. So decrypted data must be cleared as soon as possible and the data which normally is encrypted ble.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | ansible | ≥ 2.7.0a1&&< 2.7.17 | 2.7.17 |
| 🐍PyPI | ansible | ≥ 2.8.0a1&&< 2.8.11 | 2.8.11 |
| 🐍PyPI | ansible | ≥ 2.9.0a1&&< 2.9.7 | 2.9.7 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for ansible. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update ansible to 2.7.17 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-10685 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2020-10685 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2020-10685. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
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.
* 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. * In Red Hat OpenStack Platform, because the flaw has a lower impact, ansible is not directly customer exposed, and the fix would require a substantial…
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-10685 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2020-10685 across PyPI dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.