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.

References

• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-22004
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/6BUWUF5VTENNP2ZYZBVFKPSUHLKLUBD5/
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/ACVT7M4YLZRLWWQ6SGRK3C6TOF4FXOXT/
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/MBAHHSGZLEJRCG4DX6J4RBWJAAWH55RQ/
• https://saltproject.io/security_announcements/salt-security-advisory-2021-sep-02/
• https://github.com/pypa/advisory-database/tree/main/vulns/salt/PYSEC-2021-346.yaml
• GHSA-xf37-qcvf-7m57