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Fencer Intel
high 7.4

CVE-2020-1734 json

OS Command Injection in ansible

published 6y ago modified 4mo ago also GHSA-h39q-95q5-9jfp , PYSEC-2020-6 , EUVD-2020-0028

cvss
7.4
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 39%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

A flaw was found in the pipe lookup plugin of ansible. Arbitrary commands can be run, when the pipe lookup plugin uses subprocess.Popen() with shell=True, by overwriting ansible facts and the variable is not escaped by quote plugin. An attacker could take advantage and run arbitrary commands by overwriting the ansible facts.

Patch / fix

  • pypi ansible 2.7.17, 2.8.13, 2.9.11, 2.10.0rc1
  • grafana OpenStack Cloud Crowbar 9, OpenStack Cloud 9 6.7.4-3.29.1
  • rubygem-puma OpenStack Cloud Crowbar 9 2.16.0-4.18.1
  • ardana-ansible OpenStack Cloud 9 9.0+git.1660748476.c118d23-3.32.1
  • ardana-cobbler OpenStack Cloud 9 9.0+git.1660747489.119efcd-3.19.1
  • ardana-tempest OpenStack Cloud 9 9.0+git.1651855288.a2341ad-3.22.1
  • openstack-nova OpenStack Cloud Crowbar 9, OpenStack Cloud 9 18.3.1~dev92-3.43.1
  • python-Django1 OpenStack Cloud Crowbar 9, OpenStack Cloud 9 1.11.29-3.40.1
  • rabbitmq-server OpenStack Cloud Crowbar 9, OpenStack Cloud 9 3.6.16-4.3.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2022:3339-1SUSE-SU-2022:3338-1SUSE-SU-2020:3309-1

  • ansible-14 openSUSE Tumbleweed 14.6.0-1.1
  • ansible-13 openSUSE Tumbleweed 13.7.0-1.1
  • ansible-12 openSUSE Tumbleweed 12.2.0-1.1
  • ansible-11 openSUSE Tumbleweed 11.11.0-1.1
  • ansible-10 openSUSE Tumbleweed 10.6.0-1.1
  • ansible-9 openSUSE Tumbleweed 9.8.0-1.1
  • ansible Package Hub 15 SP3, openSUSE Leap 15.3 2.9.21-bp153.2.3.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:12447-1openSUSE-SU-2026:10944-1openSUSE-SU-2025:15753-1openSUSE-SU-2025:15605-1openSUSE-SU-2024:14536-1openSUSE-SU-2024:14244-1

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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-2020-1734 updated cvss 7.4

ansible: shell enabled by default in a pipe lookup plugin subprocess

  • Red Hat Ansible Engine 2 ansible, ansible-test Red Hat Ansible Tower 3 ansible Red Hat Ceph Storage 2 ansible Red Hat Ceph Storage 3 ansible Red Hat OpenStack Platform 10 (Newton) ansible Red Hat OpenStack Platform 13 (Queens) ansible
    +1 more products
    Red Hat Storage 3 ansible
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “This issue can be avoided by escaping variables which are used in the lookup.”
  • Red Hat Ansible Tower 3.4 for RHEL 7 Server ansible-tower-34/ansible-tower-memcached 1.4.15-28, ansible-tower-35/ansible-tower-memcached 1.4.15-28, ansible-tower-37/ansible-tower-memcached-rhel7 1.4.15-28
    fixed: vendor fix “This issue can be avoided by escaping variables which are used in the lookup.” RHBA-2020:0547
  • Red Hat Ansible Tower 3.5 for RHEL 7 Server ansible-tower-35/ansible-tower 3.5.6-1
    fixed: vendor fix “This issue can be avoided by escaping variables which are used in the lookup.” RHBA-2020:1539
  • Red Hat CloudForms Management Engine 5 ansible-tower, ansible-tower-ui, ansible-tower-setup, ansible-tower-server, ansible-tower-venv-tower, ansible-tower-venv-ansible
    not affected: vulnerable code not present “This issue can be avoided by escaping variables which are used in the lookup.”

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

0.46% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 39% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.4 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:L
NVD 3.1 7.4 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:L
NVD 2.0 3.7 AV:L/AC:H/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
GitHub 3.1 7.4 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:L

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
pypi ansible
>=2.10.0a1, <2.10.0rc1
>=2.9.0a1, <2.9.11
<2.8.13
<2.7.17
2.10.0rc1
2.9.11
2.8.13
2.7.17

Affected products

  • Red Hat Ansible

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-78 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command

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.