Threat: Master Compromise
- Threat: Master Compromise
- Description: An attacker gains unauthorized access to the Salt Master server by exploiting vulnerabilities in the Salt Master software, misconfigurations, or weak credentials. Once compromised, the attacker can execute arbitrary commands on all managed minions, modify configurations pushed to minions, exfiltrate sensitive data managed by Salt, and potentially take over the entire infrastructure managed by Salt.
- Impact: Complete compromise of managed infrastructure, widespread data breach across managed systems, significant service disruption due to attacker control over infrastructure.
- Affected Salt Component: Salt Master Server (Salt Master Service, Salt API, Salt Configuration)
- Risk Severity: Critical
- Mitigation Strategies:
- Harden the Salt Master operating system and Salt Master service configuration.
- Implement strong authentication mechanisms for Salt Master access, such as key-based authentication and multi-factor authentication.
- Strictly control network access to the Salt Master, limiting it to only necessary sources.
- Regularly audit Salt Master access logs and security events for suspicious activity.
- Keep the Salt Master software and all its dependencies up to date with the latest security patches.
- Implement Intrusion Detection/Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS) to monitor and protect the Salt Master.
Threat: Minion Compromise
- Threat: Minion Compromise
- Description: An attacker gains unauthorized access to a Salt Minion server by exploiting vulnerabilities in the Salt Minion software, applications running on the minion, or through lateral movement from a compromised application. A compromised Minion can be used to access sensitive data on that minion, pivot to other systems within the network using Salt's capabilities, or potentially attempt to attack the Salt Master if network segmentation is weak.
- Impact: Data breach on the compromised Minion, potential lateral movement within the network leveraging Salt communication, possible escalation to Master compromise if network controls are insufficient, disruption of services running on the compromised Minion.
- Affected Salt Component: Salt Minion Server (Salt Minion Service, Salt Configuration)
- Risk Severity: High
- Mitigation Strategies:
- Harden Minion operating systems and Salt Minion service configuration.
- Apply the principle of least privilege to the Salt Minion process and its access to system resources.
- Implement strong network segmentation to limit the impact of a Minion compromise and restrict lateral movement.
- Regularly audit Minion logs and security events for suspicious activity.
- Implement Host-based Intrusion Detection Systems (HIDS) on Minions to detect malicious activity.
- Keep the Salt Minion software and all its dependencies up to date with the latest security patches.
- Threat: Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) Attack on Master-Minion Communication
- Description: An attacker intercepts the communication channel between the Salt Master and Minions. By positioning themselves on the network path, they can attempt to eavesdrop on or manipulate commands and data exchanged between the Master and Minions. If encryption is disabled or weak, the attacker can decrypt and modify commands, potentially executing malicious actions on Minions or exfiltrating sensitive information.
- Impact: Unauthorized command execution on Minions leading to system compromise, manipulation of configurations deployed by Salt, information disclosure of sensitive data transmitted over Salt communication channels.
- Affected Salt Component: Salt Communication Protocol (ZeroMQ), Salt Key Exchange Mechanism
- Risk Severity: High
- Mitigation Strategies:
- Ensure Salt Master and Minions are configured to use strong encryption for communication (default ZeroMQ encryption should be enabled and properly configured).
- Regularly rotate and securely manage Salt keys used for authentication and encryption between Master and Minions.
- Consider using a dedicated and isolated network (VLAN) for Salt communication to minimize the risk of network-based attacks.
- Implement network monitoring to detect suspicious traffic patterns indicative of MITM attempts.
- Threat: Weak Authentication and Authorization
- Description: Attackers exploit weak authentication mechanisms or misconfigured authorization policies within SaltStack. This could involve brute-forcing weak passwords for Salt API access, exploiting vulnerabilities in Salt's authentication modules, or bypassing improperly configured Access Control Lists (ACLs). Successful exploitation allows unauthorized access to Salt functionalities, enabling attackers to execute commands, modify configurations, or access sensitive data through the Salt API or CLI.
- Impact: Unauthorized access to Salt functionality, privilege escalation within SaltStack, potential for data manipulation and system compromise through unauthorized Salt actions.
- Affected Salt Component: Salt Authentication Modules (PAM, eauth, external auth), Salt Authorization System (ACLs, RBAC, eauth)
- Risk Severity: High
- Mitigation Strategies:
- Enforce strong password policies for Salt users if password-based authentication is used (though key-based is preferred).
- Utilize key-based authentication for Salt Master and Minion communication and for accessing the Salt API.
- Implement Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) within SaltStack to restrict access to specific functionalities and resources based on user roles.
- Regularly review and audit Salt ACLs and authorization configurations to ensure they are correctly implemented and enforced.
- Securely store and manage Salt keys, protecting them from unauthorized access using appropriate file system permissions and access controls.
- Threat: Vulnerable Salt States and Modules
- Description: Attackers exploit vulnerabilities present in custom or third-party Salt states and modules. These vulnerabilities can arise from insecure coding practices within states and modules, such as command injection flaws, path traversal vulnerabilities, or the use of vulnerable libraries. Exploiting these vulnerabilities can lead to arbitrary code execution on managed minions when states are applied, or on the Salt Master if modules are executed there.
- Impact: Remote code execution on Minions or the Salt Master, privilege escalation on managed systems, system compromise through malicious state or module execution, potential data breach if states or modules handle sensitive data insecurely.
- Affected Salt Component: Salt States, Salt Modules (Custom and Core), Salt Execution Engine
- Risk Severity: Critical
- Mitigation Strategies:
- Implement rigorous code review and security audits for all custom Salt states and modules before deployment.
- Utilize static code analysis tools to automatically scan Salt states and modules for potential security vulnerabilities.
- Adhere to secure coding practices when developing custom Salt states and modules, including input validation, output encoding, and avoiding the use of shell commands where safer alternatives exist.
- Keep SaltStack and its core modules updated to patch known vulnerabilities.
- Exercise caution when using third-party Salt states and modules from untrusted sources, and thoroughly review them for security issues before use.
Threat: Secrets Exposure in SaltStack
- Threat: Secrets Exposure in SaltStack
- Description: Sensitive data and secrets managed by SaltStack, such as passwords, API keys, and certificates, are exposed due to insecure storage or handling within Salt configurations. This can occur if secrets are hardcoded directly in Salt states, stored in plain text within Pillar data without encryption, or logged insecurely. Attackers gaining access to these exposed secrets can compromise other systems and services that rely on these credentials.
- Impact: Data breach due to exposure of sensitive credentials, unauthorized access to other systems and services that rely on the compromised secrets, potential privilege escalation if exposed secrets grant elevated access.
- Affected Salt Component: Salt Pillar, Salt States, Salt Logs, Salt Configuration Files
- Risk Severity: Critical
- Mitigation Strategies:
- Utilize Salt's Pillar system for managing secrets, ensuring proper access control and encryption of Pillar data at rest and in transit.
- Avoid hardcoding secrets directly in Salt states or modules.
- Integrate SaltStack with dedicated secret management solutions like HashiCorp Vault or CyberArk to securely store, manage, and rotate secrets.
- Sanitize logs and outputs generated by Salt to prevent accidental exposure of sensitive data in log files or command outputs.
- Implement proper access controls to Pillar data, restricting access to only authorized users and processes.
- Threat: Privilege Escalation via SaltStack Misconfiguration
- Description: Attackers exploit misconfigurations in Salt states, modules, or SaltStack's overall setup to achieve privilege escalation on managed minions or the Salt Master itself. This could involve leveraging insecure permissions set by Salt states, exploiting vulnerable Salt modules that run with elevated privileges, or misusing Salt functionalities like
cmd.runto execute commands with unintended privileges. Successful exploitation allows attackers to gain higher levels of access on the system than initially authorized. - Impact: Unauthorized access to system resources, ability to perform administrative actions on managed systems, potential for full system compromise if escalation to root or administrator level is achieved, lateral movement within the infrastructure using escalated privileges.
- Affected Salt Component: Salt States, Salt Modules, Salt Execution Engine, Salt Configuration
- Risk Severity: High
- Mitigation Strategies:
- Adhere to the principle of least privilege when configuring Salt states and modules, ensuring that actions are performed with the minimum necessary privileges.
- Regularly audit Salt states and configurations for potential privilege escalation vulnerabilities, paying close attention to file permissions, user and group management, and command execution contexts.
- Run Salt Minions with minimal necessary privileges, avoiding running the Minion process as root if possible and limiting the privileges granted to the Minion user.
- Implement security best practices for system hardening and privilege management on managed nodes, independent of SaltStack configurations, to limit the impact of potential privilege escalation vulnerabilities.
- Threat: Supply Chain Compromise of SaltStack Software
- Description: The SaltStack software itself or its dependencies are compromised at any point in the supply chain, from development to distribution. This could involve malicious code injection into official repositories, compromised build processes, or vulnerabilities introduced through compromised dependencies. If compromised SaltStack software is installed, it could introduce backdoors or vulnerabilities into the managed infrastructure during initial deployment or subsequent updates, potentially affecting all systems managed by the compromised SaltStack instance.
- Impact: Widespread compromise of managed systems across the infrastructure, potential for persistent backdoors within the management system, large-scale data breaches affecting all managed environments, complete loss of trust in the integrity of the management platform.
- Affected Salt Component: SaltStack Software Packages, SaltStack Repositories, SaltStack Build and Release Processes, Dependencies of SaltStack
- Risk Severity: Critical
- Mitigation Strategies:
- Download SaltStack software packages only from official and trusted sources, such as the official SaltStack repositories or trusted package managers.
- Verify the integrity of downloaded SaltStack packages using checksums and digital signatures to ensure they have not been tampered with.
- Regularly update SaltStack and all its dependencies to patch known vulnerabilities and benefit from security improvements.
- Implement vulnerability scanning and Software Composition Analysis (SCA) to identify potential vulnerabilities in SaltStack and its dependencies.
- Consider using signed packages and secure repositories for SaltStack and its dependencies to enhance supply chain security.
- Implement robust change management and security review processes for all updates to SaltStack and its dependencies, including testing in non-production environments before wider deployment.