Directory traversal vulnerability in minion id validation in SaltStack Salt before 2016.3.8, 2016.11.x before 2016.11.8, and 2017.7.x before 2017.7.2 allows remote minions with incorrect credentials to authenticate to a master via a crafted minion ID. NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2017-12791.

A flaw in minion id validation was found which could allow certain minions to authenticate to a master despite not having the correct credentials. To exploit the vulnerability, an attacker must create a salt-minion with an ID containing characters that will cause a directory traversal.

External References:

https://docs.saltstack.com/en/2016.11/topics/releases/2016.11.7.html

An input validation vulnerability with a specially crafted authentication request was discover in salt. A remote attacker can use this for a Denial of Service attack.