Vulnerability · Published May 22, 2026 · Assigned by Docker
CVE-2026-5843Docker Model Runner container-to-host code execution via MLX-LM model_file importlib loading
High 8.2
In plain English
A high-severity security flaw in Docker Desktop from Docker. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.2% (higher than 13% of all known vulnerabilities). Ready-made attack tooling exists: public proof-of-concept code.
Official description
The MLX inference backend in Docker Model Runner on macOS uses the MLX-LM library, which unconditionally imports and executes arbitrary Python files from model directories via the model_file configuration field in config.json. When a model's config.json specifies a model_file pointing to a Python file, MLX-LM uses importlib to load and execute it with no trust_remote_code gate or equivalent safety check. The MLX backend runs without sandboxing, resulting in arbitrary code execution on the Docker host as the Docker Desktop user. Any container on the Docker network can trigger this by calling the model-runner.docker.internal API to pull a malicious model from an attacker-controlled OCI registry and request inference.
Affected products (as reported)
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| Docker | Docker Desktop | 4.56.0 – before 4.71.0 |
Weakness: CWE-829 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
References
- https://docs.docker.com/desktop/release-notes/#4710 release-notes