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Vulnerability · Published Feb 19, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

CVE-2026-24834Kata Container to Guest micro VM privilege escalation

Critical 9.4

In plain English

A critical-severity incorrect permission assignment 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 0.2% (higher than 16% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.

Severity (CVSS 3.1)9.4Critical
Exploit odds (30 days)0.2%top 84.3% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: poc
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

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 3.27.0, an issue in Kata with Cloud Hypervisor allows a user of the container to modify the file system used by the Guest micro VM ultimately achieving arbitrary code execution as root in said VM. The current understanding is this doesn’t impact the security of the Host or of other containers / VMs running on that Host (note that arm64 QEMU lacks NVDIMM read-only support: It is believed that until the upstream QEMU gains this capability, a guest write could reach the image file). Version 3.27.0 patches the issue.

Affected packages & fixed versions

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
Gogithub.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/src/runtime0.0.0-20260219090056-6a672503973bGHSA-wwj6-vghv-5p64
Gogithub.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/src/runtime0.0.0-20260219090056-6a672503973bGO-2026-4517

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
kata-containers kata-containers < 3.27.0

Weakness: CWE-732, CWE-281 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

References