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Fencer Intel
medium 6.2

CVE-2011-3871 json

Puppet uses predictable filenames, allowing arbitrary file overwrite

published 2011-10-27 15 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also GHSA-mpmx-gm5v-q789 , EUVD-2022-4604

cvss
6.2
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 27%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Puppet 2.7.x before 2.7.5, 2.6.x before 2.6.11, and 0.25.x, when running in --edit mode, uses a predictable file name, which allows local users to run arbitrary Puppet code or trick a user into editing arbitrary files.

Patch / fix

  • rubygems puppet 2.6.11, 2.7.5
  • puppet Debian 11 2.7.3-3

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2011-3871

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2011-3871 updated cvss 4.6

puppet: predictable temporary file using RAL

  • Red Hat Enterprise MRG 1 puppet
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.34% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 27% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 6.2 AV:L/AC:H/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
rubygems puppet
>=2.7.0, <2.7.5
<2.6.11
2.7.5
2.6.11

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-264 Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls
  • CWE-340 Generation of Predictable Numbers or Identifiers

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.