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Fencer Intel
medium 5.5

CVE-2021-20191 json

Insertion of Sensitive Information into Log File in ansible

published 5y ago modified 4mo ago also GHSA-8f4m-hccc-8qph , PYSEC-2021-124 , EUVD-2021-0008

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 28%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

A flaw was found in ansible. Credentials, such as secrets, are being disclosed in console log by default and not protected by no_log feature when using those modules. An attacker can take advantage of this information to steal those credentials. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality. Versions before ansible 2.9.18 are affected.

Patch / fix

  • pypi ansible 2.8.19, 2.8.19rc1, 2.9.18, 2.9.18rc1, 2.10.7
  • redhat ansible 2.8.19, 2.9.18, 2.10.7
  • redhat cisco_nx-os_collection 1.4.0
  • redhat community_general_collection 1.3.6, 2.0.1
  • redhat community_network_collection 1.3.2, 2.0.1
  • redhat docker_community_collection 1.2.2
  • ansible Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.10.7-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-20191

  • ansible rhev manager 4.4, rhev hypervisor 4.4, ansible engine 2.9 +1 more 2.9.18-1.el8ae
  • ansible ansible engine 2.9, ansible engine 2 2.9.18-1.el7ae
  • ansible-test ansible engine 2.9, ansible engine 2 2.9.18-1.el7ae
  • ansible-test ansible engine 2.9, ansible engine 2 2.9.18-1.el8ae

red hat advisories RHSA-2021:2180RHSA-2021:0664RHSA-2021:0663

  • rhnlib Manager Client Tools 15-BETA 5.0.1-159000.6.30.1
  • ansible Manager Client Tools 15-BETA 2.9.27-159000.3.9.1
  • grafana Manager Client Tools 15-BETA 9.5.8-159000.4.24.1
  • mgr-push Manager Client Tools 15-BETA 5.0.1-159000.4.21.1
  • spacecmd Manager Client Tools 15-BETA 5.0.1-159000.6.42.1
  • python-hwdata Manager Client Tools 15-BETA 2.3.5-159000.5.13.1
  • python-pyvmomi Manager Client Tools 15-BETA 6.7.3-159000.3.6.1
  • dracut-saltboot Manager Client Tools Beta for SLE Micro 5, Manager Client Tools 15-BETA 0.1.1681904360.84ef141-159000.3.30.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2024:0196-1SUSE-SU-2022:3178-1SUSE-SU-2021:2121-1

  • 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

  • ansible Alpine 3.10 2.8.19-r0
  • ansible Alpine 3.12, Alpine 3.11 2.9.18-r0
  • ansible Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +9 more 2.10.7-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2021-20191

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • ansible Arch Linux 2.10.7-1

arch linux advisories AVG-1437

Is CVE-2021-20191 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-2021-20191 updated cvss 5.0

ansible: multiple modules expose secured values

  • Red Hat Ansible Tower 3 ansible
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Storage 3 ansible
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 1.2 for RHEL 7 ansible-automation-platform/platform-resource-runner-rhel7 v0.1.0-15, ansible-automation-platform/platform-resource-operator-bundle v0.1.1-1, ansible-automation-platform/platform-resource-rhel7-operator v0.1.0-12
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:1079
  • Red Hat Ansible Engine 2 for RHEL 7 ansible 2.9.18-1.el7ae, ansible-test 2.9.18-1.el7ae Red Hat Ansible Engine 2 for RHEL 8 ansible 2.9.18-1.el8ae, ansible-test 2.9.18-1.el8ae
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:0663
  • Red Hat Ansible Engine 2.9 for RHEL 7 Server ansible 2.9.18-1.el7ae, ansible-test 2.9.18-1.el7ae Red Hat Ansible Engine 2.9 for RHEL 8 ansible 2.9.18-1.el8ae, ansible-test 2.9.18-1.el8ae
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:0664
  • Red Hat Virtualization 4 Management Agent for RHEL 7 Hosts ansible 2.9.18-1.el8ae Red Hat RHEL-8-RHEV-S-4.4 - Red Hat Virtualization Engine 4.4 ansible 2.9.18-1.el8ae
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:2180
  • Red Hat Virtualization 4 Management Agent for RHEL 7 Hosts ovirt-ansible-collection 1.4.2-1.el8ev, python-ovirt-engine-sdk4 4.4.12-1.el8ev, python3-ovirt-engine-sdk4 4.4.12-1.el8ev Red Hat Virtualization 4 Tools for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 ovirt-ansible-collection 1.4.2-1.el8ev, python-ovirt-engine-sdk4 4.4.12-1.el8ev, rubygem-ovirt-engine-sdk4 4.4.1-1.el8ev, python3-ovirt-engine-sdk4 4.4.12-1.el8ev Red Hat RHEL-8-RHEV-S-4.4 - Red Hat Virtualization Engine 4.4 ovirt-ansible-collection 1.4.2-1.el8ev, python-ovirt-engine-sdk4 4.4.12-1.el8ev, rubygem-ovirt-engine-sdk4 4.4.1-1.el8ev, python3-ovirt-engine-sdk4 4.4.12-1.el8ev
    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

0.35% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 28% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 2.0 2.1 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
GitHub 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
pypi ansible
>=2.9.0a1, <2.9.18rc1
<2.8.19rc1
>=2.10.0a1, <2.10.7
<2.8.19
>=2.9.0, <2.9.18
>=2.10.0, <2.10.7
2.9.18rc1
2.8.19rc1
2.10.7
2.8.19
2.9.18

Affected products

  • n/a ansible

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-532 Insertion of Sensitive Information into Log File

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.