CVE-2021-22004

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.4 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2021-09-08 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-362

Description

An issue was discovered in SaltStack Salt before 3003.3. The salt minion installer will accept and use a minion config file at C:\salt\conf if that file is in place before the installer is run. This allows for a malicious actor to subvert the proper behaviour of the given minion software.

Affected products

Fedoraproject Fedora: 33, 34, 35
VMware SALT: before 3000.3 — fixed in 3000.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: VMware SALT 3000.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/6BUWUF5VTENNP2ZYZBVFKPSUHLKLUBD5/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/ACVT7M4YLZRLWWQ6SGRK3C6TOF4FXOXT/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/MBAHHSGZLEJRCG4DX6J4RBWJAAWH55RQ/
https://saltproject.io/security_announcements/salt-security-advisory-2021-sep-02/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/6BUWUF5VTENNP2ZYZBVFKPSUHLKLUBD5/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/ACVT7M4YLZRLWWQ6SGRK3C6TOF4FXOXT/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/MBAHHSGZLEJRCG4DX6J4RBWJAAWH55RQ/
https://saltproject.io/security_announcements/salt-security-advisory-2021-sep-02/

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