CVE-2025-62349 is a vulnerability classified under CWE-287 (Improper Authentication) affecting Salt Project's Salt software, specifically version 3006.12. The issue arises from an authentication protocol version downgrade weakness, where a malicious Salt minion can exploit the system by sending requests using an older payload format. This downgrade attack allows the attacker to bypass newer authentication and security mechanisms introduced in recent Salt versions, effectively enabling minion impersonation. Minion impersonation means the attacker can masquerade as a legitimate minion, gaining unauthorized access to the Salt master and potentially executing commands or manipulating configurations. The vulnerability requires the attacker to have high privileges on a compromised minion and network access to the Salt master but does not require user interaction. The CVSS v3.1 score is 6.2 (medium severity), reflecting high impact on confidentiality and integrity, with low impact on availability. No public exploits are known at this time. The vulnerability is significant because Salt is widely used for automation and configuration management in enterprise and cloud environments, making this a vector for lateral movement and privilege escalation within affected networks. The lack of available patches at the time of reporting necessitates immediate mitigation efforts to reduce risk.

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a substantial risk to the confidentiality and integrity of their IT infrastructure managed via Salt. Successful exploitation could allow attackers to impersonate legitimate minions, leading to unauthorized command execution, configuration changes, or data exfiltration. This could disrupt automated workflows, compromise sensitive data, and undermine trust in infrastructure management processes. Given Salt's role in managing critical systems, the vulnerability could facilitate lateral movement within networks, enabling attackers to escalate privileges or pivot to more sensitive assets. The limited impact on availability reduces the likelihood of direct denial-of-service effects, but the stealthy nature of impersonation attacks increases the risk of prolonged undetected compromise. European organizations with complex, automated environments relying on Salt are particularly vulnerable, especially those in regulated sectors such as finance, healthcare, and critical infrastructure. The absence of known exploits provides a window for proactive defense, but the medium severity score indicates that the threat should not be underestimated.

1. Upgrade Salt to the latest patched version as soon as it becomes available from the Salt Project to eliminate the downgrade vulnerability. 2. Implement strict network segmentation and firewall rules to limit Salt master communication only to trusted minions, reducing exposure to potentially compromised nodes. 3. Enforce multi-factor authentication and strong credential management for Salt master and minion access to prevent unauthorized privilege escalation. 4. Monitor Salt master logs and network traffic for anomalous authentication attempts or unusual minion behavior indicative of impersonation or downgrade attacks. 5. Apply application-layer security controls such as mutual TLS authentication with strict certificate validation to prevent downgrade of protocol versions. 6. Conduct regular security audits and penetration testing focused on Salt infrastructure to identify and remediate weaknesses proactively. 7. Educate system administrators and security teams about this vulnerability and encourage rapid incident response readiness. 8. Consider deploying intrusion detection/prevention systems (IDS/IPS) tuned to detect Salt protocol anomalies. 9. Maintain an inventory of all Salt minions and verify their integrity and patch status continuously. 10. Collaborate with Salt Project community and security advisories to stay informed about updates and best practices.