Medium
Security advisory
A race condition flaw was found in Ansible Engine 2.7.17 and prior, 2.8.9 and prior, 2.9.6 and prior when running a playbook with an unprivileged become user. When Ansible needs to run a module with become user, the temporary directory is created in /var/tmp. This directory is created with "umask 77 && mkdir -p "; this operation does not fail if the directory already exists and is owned by another user. An attacker could take advantage to gain control of the become user as the target directory can be retrieved by iterating '/proc//cmdline'.
- Products
- Not specified
- Affected versions
- Not specified
- Fixed versions
- Not specified
- CVEs
- CVE-2020-1733
- Confirmed fixed CVEs
- Not specified
- Updated in this feed
- 31 Oct 2026, 10:54 UTC · Revision 1
Source evidence
A race condition flaw was found in Ansible Engine 2.7.17 and prior, 2.8.9 and prior, 2.9.6 and prior when running a playbook with an unprivileged become user. When Ansible needs to run a module with become user, the temporary directory is created in /var/tmp. This directory is created with "umask 77 && mkdir -p "; this operation does not fail if the directory already exists and is owned by another user. An attacker could take advantage to gain control of the become user as the target directory can be retrieved by iterating '/proc//cmdline'.
osv:CVE-2020-1733
Complete source record
{
"id": "de7742f46b5f3a73f47291a2b8cb3270772a3bb5aa5b0c8621df709ce141b73a",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-1733",
"method": "structured",
"payload": {
"kind": "advisory",
"title": "CVE-2020-1733",
"summary": "A race condition flaw was found in Ansible Engine 2.7.17 and prior, 2.8.9 and prior, 2.9.6 and prior when running a playbook with an unprivileged become user. When Ansible needs to run a module with become user, the temporary directory is created in /var/tmp. This directory is created with \"umask 77 && mkdir -p \"; this operation does not fail if the directory already exists and is owned by another user. An attacker could take advantage to gain control of the become user as the target directory can be retrieved by iterating '/proc//cmdline'.",
"evidence": "osv:CVE-2020-1733",
"products": [],
"severity": "medium",
"structured": {
"id": "CVE-2020-1733",
"aliases": [
"CVE-2020-1733",
"GHSA-g4mq-6fp5-qwcf",
"PYSEC-2020-5"
],
"metrics": [
{
"type": "CVSS_V3",
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:L"
}
],
"affected": [
{
"ranges": [
{
"repo": "https://github.com/ansible/ansible",
"type": "GIT",
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"last_affected": "8fd406ee8e3a14be72b3cbbfe91d03fe35952f95"
},
{
"introduced": "2611867fd1dc387ceaa0ffb8ce0f030aafc2a859"
},
{
"fixed": "d28e4b63c7b70acbaf0a1fedd53c91b6686574a0"
},
{
"introduced": "24325a05dfb9104d6d4ec8b488b89e07c2e6d376"
},
{
"last_affected": "9388be4269bdf83406bfa9245142de8b7dc8cfbc"
}
],
"database_specific": {
"extracted_events": [
{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
"range": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"last_affected": "2.7.16"
}
],
"source": "CPE_RANGE"
},
{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
"range": [
{
"introduced": "2.8.0"
},
{
"fixed": "2.8.8"
}
],
"source": "CPE_RANGE"
},
{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
"range": [
{
"introduced": "2.9.0"
},
{
"last_affected": "2.9.5"
}
],
"source": "CPE_RANGE"
}
]
}
}
],
"versions": [
"v2.9.5",
"v2.9.4",
"v2.9.3",
"v2.7.16",
"v2.9.2",
"v2.9.1",
"v2.8.7",
"v2.7.15",
"v2.9.0",
"v2.8.6",
"v2.7.14",
"v2.8.5",
"v2.7.13",
"v2.8.4",
"v2.8.3",
"v2.7.12",
"v2.8.2",
"v2.8.1",
"v2.7.11",
"v2.8.0",
"v2.7.10",
"v2.7.9",
"v2.7.8",
"v2.7.7",
"v2.7.6",
"v2.7.5",
"v2.7.4",
"v2.7.3",
"v2.7.2",
"v2.7.1",
"v2.7.0",
"v2.7.0rc4",
"v2.7.0rc3",
"v2.7.0rc2",
"v2.7.0rc1",
"v2.7.0b1",
"v2.7.0.a1",
"v2.6.0a1",
"v2.0.0-0.5.beta3",
"v2.0.0-0.4.beta2",
"v2.0.0-0.3.beta1",
"v2.0.0-0.2.alpha2",
"v2.0.0-0.1.alpha1",
"v1.6.0",
"v1.4.0",
"v1.2",
"v1.1",
"v1.0",
"0.7",
"0.3",
"0.0.1",
"0.01"
],
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2020-1733.json"
}
}
],
"modified": "2026-10-20T10:52:00.941646939Z",
"provider": "osv",
"references": [
"https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/DKPA4KC3OJSUFASUYMG66HKJE7ADNGFW/",
"https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/MRRYUU5ZBLPBXCYG6CFP35D64NP2UB2S/",
"https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/WQVOQD4VAIXXTVQAJKTN7NUGTJFE2PCB/",
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/05/msg00005.html",
"https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202006-11",
"https://www.debian.org/security/2021/dsa-4950",
"https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2020-1733",
"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/67791"
],
"provider_metadata": {
"unresolved_ranges": [
{
"cpes": [
"cpe:2.3:a:redhat:ansible_tower:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"
],
"vendor_product": "redhat:ansible_tower",
"extracted_events": [
{
"range": [
{
"last_affected": "3.3.4"
},
{
"introduced": "3.3.5"
},
{
"last_affected": "3.4.5"
},
{
"introduced": "3.5.0"
},
{
"last_affected": "3.5.5"
},
{
"introduced": "3.6.0"
},
{
"last_affected": "3.6.3"
}
],
"source": "CPE_RANGE"
}
]
},
{
"cpes": [
"cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:10.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
"cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"
],
"vendor_product": "debian:debian_linux",
"extracted_events": [
{
"range": [
{
"introduced": "8.0"
},
{
"last_affected": "8.0"
},
{
"introduced": "10.0"
},
{
"last_affected": "10.0"
}
],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
}
]
},
{
"cpes": [
"cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:30:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
"cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:31:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
"cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:32:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"
],
"vendor_product": "fedoraproject:fedora",
"extracted_events": [
{
"range": [
{
"introduced": "30"
},
{
"last_affected": "30"
},
{
"introduced": "31"
},
{
"last_affected": "31"
},
{
"introduced": "32"
},
{
"last_affected": "32"
}
],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
}
]
},
{
"cpes": [
"cpe:2.3:a:redhat:cloudforms_management_engine:5.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"
],
"vendor_product": "redhat:cloudforms_management_engine",
"extracted_events": [
{
"range": [
{
"introduced": "5.0"
},
{
"last_affected": "5.0"
}
],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
}
]
},
{
"cpes": [
"cpe:2.3:a:redhat:openstack:13:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"
],
"vendor_product": "redhat:openstack",
"extracted_events": [
{
"range": [
{
"introduced": "13"
},
{
"last_affected": "13"
}
],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
}
]
}
]
}
},
"related_cves": [
{
"value": "CVE-2020-1733",
"evidence": "/id"
}
],
"security_relevant": true,
"severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
},
"source_id": "core-osv",
"document_id": 383201,
"published_at": "2020-03-11T19:15:13.03+00:00"
}