CVE-2021-20228 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Information Exposure vulnerability in ansible. A fix is available for ansible — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Ansible Exposes Sensitive Information
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2021-20228 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,636 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
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 the Ansible Engine prior to 2.10.6rc1, 2.9.18rc1, and 2.8.19rc1, where sensitive info is not masked by default and is not protected by the no_log feature when using the sub-option feature of the basic.py module. This flaw allows an attacker to obtain sensitive information. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to confidentiality.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | ansible | ≥ 2.10.0a1&&< 2.10.6rc1 | 2.10.6rc1pip install --upgrade 'ansible==2.10.6rc1' |
| 🐍PyPI | ansible | ≥ 2.9.0a1&&< 2.9.18rc1 | 2.9.18rc1pip install --upgrade 'ansible==2.9.18rc1' |
| 🐍PyPI | ansible | all versions | 2.8.19rc1pip install --upgrade 'ansible==2.8.19rc1' |
Detection & 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 2.10.6rc1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2021-20228 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 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2021-20228 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2021-20228. 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.
| 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-2021-20228 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2021-20228 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.