CVE-2022-22967 — salt
HIGHCVE-2022-22967 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) CWE-863 vulnerability in salt. A fix is available for salt — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Salt's PAM auth fails to reject locked accounts
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2022-22967.
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-2022-22967 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 376,715 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
salt🐍salt🐍saltReal-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
An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt in versions before 3002.9, 3003.5, 3004.2. PAM auth fails to reject locked accounts, which allows a previously authorized user whose account is locked still run Salt commands when their account is locked. This affects both local shell accounts with an active session and salt-api users that authenticate via PAM eauth.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | salt | all versions | 3002.9pip install --upgrade 'salt==3002.9' |
| 🐍PyPI | salt | ≥ 3003.0&&< 3003.5 | 3003.5pip install --upgrade 'salt==3003.5' |
| 🐍PyPI | salt | ≥ 3004.0&&< 3004.2 | 3004.2pip install --upgrade 'salt==3004.2' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for salt, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update salt to 3002.9 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-22967 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-2022-22967 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2022-22967. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-22967 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2022-22967 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.