GHSA-vcg8-98q8-g7mj is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.7) CWE-377 vulnerability in ansible. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-vcg8-98q8-g7mj is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor and Insecure Temporary File in Ansible
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 Ansible Engine when using Ansible Vault for editing encrypted files. When a user executes "ansible-vault edit", another user on the same computer can read the old and new secret, as it is created in a temporary file with mkstemp and the returned file descriptor is closed and the method write_data is called to write the existing secret in the file. This method will delete the file before recreating it insecurely. All versions in 2.7.x, 2.8.x and 2.9.x branches are believed to be vulnerable.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | ansible | all versions | 2.7.17 |
| 🐍PyPI | ansible | ≥ 2.8.0a1&&< 2.8.11 | 2.8.11 |
| 🐍PyPI | ansible | ≥ 2.9.0a1&&< 2.9.7 | 2.9.7 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for ansible. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update ansible to 2.7.17 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-vcg8-98q8-g7mj 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 pinpoints whether GHSA-vcg8-98q8-g7mj is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to GHSA-vcg8-98q8-g7mj. 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.
Ansible Engine 2.7.16, 2.8.10, and 2.9.6 as well as previous versions are affected. Ansible Tower 3.4.5, 3.5.5 and 3.6.3 as well as previous versions are affected. In Red Hat OpenStack Platform, because the flaw has a lower impact, ansible is not directly customer exposed, and the fix would require a substantial…
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-vcg8-98q8-g7mj in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-vcg8-98q8-g7mj across PyPI dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.