CVE-2020-14365 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.1) CWE-347 vulnerability in ansible. A fix is available for ansible — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature in ansible
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2020-14365 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,738 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
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 the Ansible Engine, in ansible-engine 2.8.x before 2.8.15 and ansible-engine 2.9.x before 2.9.13, when installing packages using the dnf module. GPG signatures are ignored during installation even when disable_gpg_check is set to False, which is the default behavior. This flaw leads to malicious packages being installed on the system and arbitrary code executed via package installation scripts. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to integrity and system availability.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | ansible | ≥ 2.8.0a1&&< 2.8.15 | 2.8.15pip install --upgrade 'ansible==2.8.15' |
| 🐍PyPI | ansible | ≥ 2.9.0a1&&< 2.9.13 | 2.9.13pip install --upgrade 'ansible==2.9.13' |
Affected Products
debian linuxdebianansible engineredhatansible towerredhatceph storageredhatopenstack platformredhatDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
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.
Fix
Update ansible to 2.8.15 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-14365 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.
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 2.8.14 and 2.9.12 as well as previous versions versions are affected. Ansible Tower 3.7.2 and 3.6.5 as well as previous versions are affected for containerized versions and has been fixed indirectly in the 3.6.6 and 3.7.3 releases. For non-containerized Ansible Tower versions, the fix is provided via…
Red Hat has investigated whether a possible mitigation exists for this issue, and has not been able to identify a practical example. Please update as soon as possible.Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2020-14365 (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Ansible Engine 2.8 for RHEL 7 | ansible-0:2.8.15-1.el7ae | RHSA-2020:3600 |
| Red Hat Ansible Engine 2.9 for RHEL 7 | ansible-0:2.9.13-1.el7ae | RHSA-2020:3601 |
| Red Hat Ansible Engine 2 for RHEL 7 | ansible-0:2.9.13-1.el7ae | RHSA-2020:3602 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-14365 in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.