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CRITICAL severity

CVE-2023-5214 — bolt

CRITICAL

CVE-2023-5214 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in bolt. A fix is available for bolt — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Puppet Bolt privilege escalation vulnerability

Also known asGHSA-289m-2964-f8q5
Published
Updated
Affected
1 pkg
Patched
1 / 1
Exploits
None indexed
Exploitation data as of Oct 22, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Exploitation Status

No confirmed exploitation observed yet

  • 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-2023-5214.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
0.4%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk+0.07%
Lower risk than most CVEs38th percentile — riskier than 38% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%0.32%0.63%0.95%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

Where this sits among everything scored

Real-World Exposure

1 pkg affected
💎bolt

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects RubyGems packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

In Puppet Bolt versions prior to 3.27.4, a path to escalate privileges was identified.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
💎RubyGemsboltall versions3.27.4bundle update bolt --conservative

Affected Products

1 product · 1 configurations
Application
boltpuppet
< 3.27.4
range

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for bolt, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update bolt to 3.27.4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-5214 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. Workarounds

    Close the privilege gap rather than the entry point: audit which accounts, roles and service identities can reach the affected operation, drop the component to the least privilege it actually needs, and review file and directory permissions created by earlier installs — a default left in place is what makes this reachable.

Frequently Asked Questions

In Puppet Bolt versions prior to 3.27.4, a path to escalate privileges was identified.
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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CVE-2023-5214: bolt — Fixed in 3.27.4