Vulnerability · Published Jan 29, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M
CVE-2026-24054Kata Containers Runtime: Host block device can be hotplugged to the VM if the container image is malformed or contains no layers
High 8.8
In plain English
A high-severity security flaw in kata-containers from kata-containers. Proof-of-concept exploit code is public. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.5% (higher than 44% of all known vulnerabilities).
Official description
Kata Containers is an open source project focusing on a standard implementation of lightweight Virtual Machines (VMs) that perform like containers. In versions prior to 3.26.0, when a container image is malformed or contains no layers, containerd falls back to bind-mounting an empty snapshotter directory for the container rootfs. When the Kata runtime attempts to mount the container rootfs, the bind mount causes the rootfs to be detected as a block device, leading to the underlying device being hotplugged to the guest. This can cause filesystem-level errors on the host due to double inode allocation, and may lead to the host's block device being mounted as read-only. Version 3.26.0 contains a patch for the issue.
Affected products (as reported)
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| kata-containers | kata-containers | < 3.26.0 |
Weakness: CWE-754 · Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:H/SA:H/E:P
References
- https://github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/security/advisories/GHSA-5fc8-gg7w-3g5c x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/commit/20ca4d2d79aa5bf63aa1254f08915da84f19e92a x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/containerd/containerd/blob/d939b6af5f8536c2cae85e919e7c40070557df0e/plugins/snapshots/overlay/overlay.go#L564-L581 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/blob/a164693e1afead84cd01d5bc3575e2cbfe64ce35/src/runtime/virtcontainers/container.go#L1122-L1126 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/blob/c7d0c270ee7dfaa6d978e6e07b99dabdaf2b9fda/src/runtime/virtcontainers/container.go#L1616-L1623 x_refsource_MISC