Ansible Arbitrary Code Execution

published 2017-06-08 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GHSA-4cvm-5776-jx9f , PYSEC-2017-2 , EUVD-2017-0002

cvss: 8.8; version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 2.6%; EPSS 2.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 85%
public exploits: 0; none known

The user module in ansible before 1.6.6 allows remote authenticated users to execute arbitrary commands.

Patch / fix

fixed in 1 distros 2 links 1

pypi ansible 1.6.6

debian ubuntu

ansible Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 1.7.0+dfsg-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2014-3498

ansible Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 1.5.4+dfsg-1ubuntu0.1~esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2014-3498

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

github.com/ansible/ansible@8ed6350 commit

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-2014-3498 updated 2026-05-13 cvss 3.7

ansible: Potential untrusted template execution

Red Hat OpenShift Enterprise 3 ansible
not affected: vulnerable code not present

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

2.59% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 85% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
NVD	3.0	8.8	CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD	2.0	6.5	AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:P/I:P/A:P
GitHub	3.0	8.8	CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem	package	affected	fixed in
pypi	ansible	<1.6.6	1.6.6

Classification

Weakness

CWE-20 Improper Input Validation

References

github.com /ansible/ansible/commit/8ed6350e65c82292a631f08845dfaacffe7f07f5
web, patch, third-party-advisory
bugzilla.redhat.com /show_bug.cgi?id=1335551
web, issue-tracking, third-party-advisory, report
nvd.nist.gov /vuln/detail/CVE-2014-3498
advisory
github.com /ansible/ansible
package
github.com /pypa/advisory-database/tree/main/vulns/ansible/PYSEC-2017-2.yaml
web
github.com /advisories/GHSA-4cvm-5776-jx9f
advisory

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.

Summary