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MEDIUM severity

CVE-2020-10685 — ansible

MEDIUMFix: ansible/ansible#68433

CVE-2020-10685 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.5) CWE-459 vulnerability in ansible. A fix is available for ansible — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Exposure of Resource to Wrong Sphere and Insecure Temporary File in Ansible

Also known asGHSA-77g3-3j5w-64w4PYSEC-2020-1
Published
Updated
Affected
3 pkgs
Patched
3 / 3
Exploits
None indexed
Exploitation data as of Oct 10, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
0.4%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs28th percentile — riskier than 28% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%0.29%0.59%0.88%0.2%0.4%Apr 26Aug 26Oct 26

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

How urgent is this, really

CVE-2020-10685 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.

Where this sits among everything scored

Of 385,386 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 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

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

6 products · 13 configurations
OS
debian linuxdebian
1 version
10.0
Application
ansible engineredhat
≥ 2.9.0 && < 2.9.7
range
Application
ansible towerredhat
≥ 3.6.0 && ≤ 3.6.3
range
Application
ceph storageredhat
2 versions
2.03.0
Application
openstackredhat
3 versions
101315
Application
storageredhat
1 version
3.0

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-2020-10685 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. 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.

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 HatModerate

* 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…

Workaround published by Red Hat
Currently, there is no mitigation for this issue except by removing manually the temporary created file after every run.
Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2020-10685 (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 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 vulne
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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CVE-2020-10685: ansible — Fixed in 2.7.17