The salt.auth.pki module does not properly authenticate callers. The "password" field contains a public certificate which is validated against a CA certificate by the module. This is not pki authentication, as the caller does not need access to the corresponding private key for the authentication attempt to be accepted.
https://docs.saltproject.io/en/3007/topics/releases/3007.4.html
https://docs.saltproject.io/en/3006/topics/releases/3006.12.html