vault-cli is a configurable command-line interface tool (and python library) to interact with Hashicorp Vault. In versions before 3.0.0 vault-cli features the ability for rendering templated values. When a secret starts with the prefix `!template!`, vault-cli interprets the rest of the contents of the secret as a Jinja2 template. Jinja2 is a powerful templating engine and is not designed to safely render arbitrary templates. An attacker controlling a jinja2 template rendered on a machine can trigger arbitrary code, making this a Remote Code Execution (RCE) risk. If the content of the vault can be completely trusted, then this is not a problem. Otherwise, if your threat model includes cases where an attacker can manipulate a secret value read from the vault using vault-cli, then this vulnerability may impact you. In 3.0.0, the code related to interpreting vault templated secrets has been removed entirely. Users are advised to upgrade as soon as possible. For users unable to upgrade a workaround does exist. Using the environment variable `VAULT_CLI_RENDER=false` or the flag `--no-render` (placed between `vault-cli` and the subcommand, e.g. `vault-cli --no-render get-all`) or adding `render: false` to the vault-cli configuration yaml file disables rendering and removes the vulnerability. Using the python library, you can use: `vault_cli.get_client(render=False)` when creating your client to get a client that will not render templated secrets and thus operates securely.

There are packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability referenced in the following CVE:

  - vault-cli is a configurable command-line interface tool (and python library) to interact with Hashicorp
    Vault. In versions before 3.0.0 vault-cli features the ability for rendering templated values. When a
    secret starts with the prefix `!template!`, vault-cli interprets the rest of the contents of the secret as
    a Jinja2 template. Jinja2 is a powerful templating engine and is not designed to safely render arbitrary
    templates. An attacker controlling a jinja2 template rendered on a machine can trigger arbitrary code,
    making this a Remote Code Execution (RCE) risk. If the content of the vault can be completely trusted,
    then this is not a problem. Otherwise, if your threat model includes cases where an attacker can
    manipulate a secret value read from the vault using vault-cli, then this vulnerability may impact you. In
    3.0.0, the code related to interpreting vault templated secrets has been removed entirely. Users are
    advised to upgrade as soon as possible. For users unable to upgrade a workaround does exist. Using the
    environment variable `VAULT_CLI_RENDER=false` or the flag `--no-render` (placed between `vault-cli` and
    the subcommand, e.g. `vault-cli --no-render get-all`) or adding `render: false` to the vault-cli
    configuration yaml file disables rendering and removes the vulnerability. Using the python library, you
    can use: `vault_cli.get_client(render=False)` when creating your client to get a client that will not
    render templated secrets and thus operates securely. (CVE-2021-43837)

ID	Name	Product	Family	Type	Severity
417822	SCA: security update for vault-cli (GHSA-q34h-97wf-8r8j)	Tenable Cloud Security	SCA Checks	Local	medium
417822	SCA: security update for vault-cli (GHSA-q34h-97wf-8r8j)	Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security	SCA Checks	Local	medium

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2021-43837

medium

Tenable Plugins

medium

medium