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Fencer Intel
high 8.4

CVE-2019-18897 json

Local privilege escalation from user salt to root

published 6y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2019-8578

cvss
8.4
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 32%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

A UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following vulnerability in the packaging of salt of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15; openSUSE Factory allows local attackers to escalate privileges from user salt to root. This issue affects: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 salt-master version 2019.2.0-46.83.1 and prior versions. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 salt-master version 2019.2.0-6.21.1 and prior versions. openSUSE Factory salt-master version 2019.2.2-3.1 and prior versions.

Patch / fix

  • salt SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15-LTSS +1 more 3000-5.78.1
  • salt SLE Point of Sale 12 SP2, SLE Module for Advanced Systems Management 12, Manager Server 3.2 +2 more 3000-46.101.1
  • python-singledispatch SLE Point of Sale 12 SP2, SLE Module for Advanced Systems Management 12, Manager Server 3.2 +2 more 3.4.0.3-1.5.1
  • salt SLE Point of Sale 12 SP2, SLE Module for Advanced Systems Management 12, Manager Server 3.2 +2 more 2019.2.0-46.88.1
  • salt SLE Module for Server Applications 15 SP1, SLE Module for Python 2 15 SP1, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP1 2019.2.0-6.24.1
  • salt SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15-LTSS +1 more 2019.2.0-5.64.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2020:1973-1SUSE-SU-2020:1971-1SUSE-RU-2020:0685-1SUSE-SU-2020:0684-1SUSE-RU-2020:0625-1

  • salt openSUSE Leap 15.1 2019.2.0-lp151.5.12.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2020:0357-1

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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-2019-18897 updated cvss 7.8

salt: symlink following in salt allows for privilege escalalation

  • Red Hat Ceph Storage 2 salt, salt-minion
    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

0.39% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 32% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 8.4 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.2 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Affected products

  • SUSE SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12
  • SUSE SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15
  • openSUSE Factory

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-59 Improper Link Resolution Before File Access

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.