CVE-2021-20178 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.5) CWE-532 vulnerability in ansible. A fix is available for ansible — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Insertion of Sensitive Information into Log File in ansible
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2021-20178 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
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 module where credentials are disclosed in the console log by default and not protected by the security feature when using the bitbucket_pipeline_variable module. This flaw allows an attacker to steal bitbucket_pipeline credentials. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to confidentiality.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | ansible | all versions | 2.9.18pip install --upgrade 'ansible==2.9.18' |
Affected Products
fedorafedoraprojectansibleredhatansible towerredhatDetection & 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 2.9.18 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2021-20178 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.
The version of ansible shipped with Red Hat Gluster Storage (RHGS) 3 includes the vulnerable snmp module. However, RHGS 3 no longer maintains its own version of Ansible, prerequisite is to enable ansible repository in order to consume the latest version of ansible which has many bug and security fixes.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 1.2 for RHEL 7 | ansible-automation-platform/platform-resource-operator-bundle:v0.1.1-1 | RHSA-2021:1079 |
| Red Hat Ansible Engine 2.9 for RHEL 7 | ansible-0:2.9.18-1.el7ae | RHSA-2021:0664 |
| Red Hat Ansible Engine 2 for RHEL 7 | ansible-0:2.9.18-1.el7ae | RHSA-2021:0663 |
| Red Hat Virtualization 4 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | ansible-0:2.9.18-1.el8ae | RHSA-2021:2180 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2021-20178 in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.