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Fencer Intel
medium 6.5

CVE-2020-7942 json

Improper Certificate Validation in Puppet

published 6y ago modified 4mo ago also GHSA-gqvf-892r-vjm5 , EUVD-2021-0827

cvss
6.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.8%
EPSS 0.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 56%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Previously, Puppet operated on a model that a node with a valid certificate was entitled to all information in the system and that a compromised certificate allowed access to everything in the infrastructure. When a node's catalog falls back to the `default` node, the catalog can be retrieved for a different node by modifying facts for the Puppet run. This issue can be mitigated by setting `strict_hostname_checking = true` in `puppet.conf` on your Puppet master. Puppet 6.13.0 and 5.5.19 changes the default behavior for strict_hostname_checking from false to true. It is recommended that Puppet Open Source and Puppet Enterprise users that are not upgrading still set strict_hostname_checking to true to ensure secure behavior. Affected software versions: Puppet 6.x prior to 6.13.0 Puppet Agent 6.x prior to 6.13.0 Puppet 5.5.x prior to 5.5.19 Puppet Agent 5.5.x prior to 5.5.19 Resolved in: Puppet 6.13.0 Puppet Agent 6.13.0 Puppet 5.5.19 Puppet Agent 5.5.19

Patch / fix

  • rubygems puppet 5.5.19, 6.13.0
  • puppet puppet 5.5.19, 6.13.0
  • puppet puppet_agent 5.5.19, 6.13.0
  • tfm satellite capsule 6.8, satellite 6.8 6.1-1.el7sat
  • kobo satellite capsule 6.8, satellite 6.8 0.5.1-1.el7sat
  • pulp satellite capsule 6.8, satellite 6.8 2.21.3-1.el7sat
  • gofer satellite capsule 6.8, satellite 6.8 2.12.5-7.el7sat
  • future satellite capsule 6.8, satellite 6.8 0.16.0-11.el7sat
  • ostree satellite capsule 6.8, satellite 6.8 2017.1-2.atomic.el7
  • foreman satellite capsule 6.8, satellite 6.8 2.1.2.19-1.el7sat
  • katello satellite capsule 6.8, satellite 6.8 3.16.0-1.el7sat

red hat advisories RHSA-2020:4366

  • puppet SLE Module for Advanced Systems Management 12 3.8.5-15.12.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2020:1057-1

Is CVE-2020-7942 in your dependencies? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

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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-2020-7942 updated cvss 6.5

puppet: Arbitrary catalog retrieval

  • Red Hat OpenStack Platform 10 (Newton) puppet, puppet-server Red Hat OpenStack Platform 13 (Queens) puppet, puppet-server Red Hat OpenStack Platform 15 (Stein) puppet, puppet-server, puppet-headless Red Hat OpenStack Platform 16.1 puppet, puppet-server, puppet-headless Red Hat OpenStack Platform 16.2 puppet, puppet-server, puppet-headless
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “In the puppet.conf configuration file set `strict_hostname_checking = true`.”
  • Red Hat Update Infrastructure 3 for Cloud Providers puppet
    affected: workaround, no fix available “In the puppet.conf configuration file set `strict_hostname_checking = true`.”
  • Red Hat Satellite 6.8 tfm 6.1-1.el7sat, kobo 0.5.1-1.el7sat, pulp 2.21.3-1.el7sat, gofer 2.12.5-7.el7sat, receptor 0.6.3-1.el7ar, future 0.16.0-11.el7sat, +492 more Red Hat Satellite Capsule 6.8 tfm 6.1-1.el7sat, kobo 0.5.1-1.el7sat, pulp 2.21.3-1.el7sat, gofer 2.12.5-7.el7sat, future 0.16.0-11.el7sat, katello 3.16.0-1.el7sat, +246 more
    fixed: vendor fix “In the puppet.conf configuration file set `strict_hostname_checking = true`.” RHSA-2020:4366

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

0.80% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 56% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 2.0 4.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:P/I:N/A:N
GitHub 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
rubygems puppet
>=6.0.0, <6.13.0
<5.5.19
6.13.0
5.5.19

Affected products

  • Puppet Puppet
  • Puppet Puppet Agent

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-295 Improper Certificate Validation

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.