Tower: memcached deployment is insecure on OpenShift
Published May 27, 2021
4.4
MEDIUMCVSS 3.1
EPSS 0.24%
Description
A flaw was found in Ansible Tower when running Openshift. Tower runs a memcached, which is accessed via TCP. An attacker can take advantage of writing a playbook polluting this cache, causing a denial of service attack. This attack would not completely stop the service, but in the worst-case scenario, it can reduce the Tower performance, for which memcached is designed. Theoretically, more sophisticated attacks can be performed by manipulating and crafting the cache, as Tower relies on memcached as a place to pull out setting values. Confidential and sensitive data stored in memcached should not be pulled, as this information is encrypted. This flaw affects Ansible Tower versions before 3.6.4, Ansible Tower versions before 3.5.6 and Ansible Tower versions before 3.4.6.
Affected products
- Vendor n/a Product Tower Defaultn/a
- Version ansible_tower 3.6.4, ansible_tower 3.5.6, ansible_tower 3.4.6StatusaffectedConstraints-
- Version
Default status is the baseline for the product, each version can override it (e.g. patched versions marked unaffected).
| Vendor | Product | Default status | Versions | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| n/a | Tower | n/a |
|
- < 3.4.6
- ≥ 3.5.0 · < 3.5.6
- ≥ 3.6.0 · < 3.6.4
No data.
Red Hat Ansible Tower 3
ansible-tower
Affected
| Product | Package | State | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Ansible Tower 3 | ansible-tower | Affected | n/a |
No package ranges for this CVE.
Remediation
Red Hat statement
Ansible Tower 3.4.5, 3.5.5 and 3.6.3 as well as previous versions are affected when using it in OpenShift.
Red Hat mitigation
Currently, there is no mitigation for this issue.
Metrics
No CVSS v4.0 score for this CVE.
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:L
1 other source (Red Hat) ▾
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:L
No CVSS v3.0 score for this CVE.
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:P
This CVE is not in the KEV list.
No CISA SSVC assessment for this CVE yet.
Estimated probability of exploitation in the wild in the next 30 days (FIRST EPSS). As of Oct 3, 2026.
Score over time
2021–2026- EPSS v1
- EPSS v5
- EPSS v2
- EPSS v3
- EPSS v4
Percentile over time
- EPSS v1
- EPSS v5
- EPSS v2
- EPSS v3
- EPSS v4
Table of values (11 key points)
Flat stretches are collapsed; showing up to 120 newest points.
| Date | Score | Percentile | Model |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 3, 2026 | 0.24% (0.00239) | 13.59th | v5 (v2026.06.15) |
| Jun 15, 2026 | 0.24% (0.00239) | 14.69th | v5 (v2026.06.15) |
| Mar 17, 2025 | 0.13% (0.00127) | 29.49th | v4 (v2025.03.14) |
| Dec 12, 2024 | 0.04% (0.00044) | 14.58th | v3 (v2023.03.01) |
| May 25, 2024 | 0.04% (0.00044) | 12.27th | v3 (v2023.03.01) |
| Mar 7, 2023 | 0.04% (0.00044) | 10.26th | v3 (v2023.03.01) |
| Mar 6, 2023 | 0.89% (0.00885) | 27.89th | v2 (v2022.01.01) |
| Apr 1, 2022 | 0.89% (0.00885) | 24.24th | v2 (v2022.01.01) |
| Jan 6, 2022 | 2.28% (0.02283) | 51.78th | v1 |
| Jan 5, 2022 | 0.52% (0.00518) | 31.20th | v5 (v2026.06.15) |
| May 28, 2021 | 0.52% (0.00518) | 0.00th | v1 |
References (4)
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-10697 Vendor Advisory
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1818445 x_refsource_MISCIssue TrackingVendor Advisory
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-10697
- https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-10697
| Link | Providers | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-10697 | Vendor Advisory | |
| https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1818445 | x_refsource_MISCIssue TrackingVendor Advisory | |
| https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-10697 | ||
| https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-10697 |
Change history (0)
No recorded changes yet.