Vulnerability · Published Sep 14, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M
CVE-2026-53495containerd CRI ExecSync Goroutine Leak Leading to Node-Level Denial of Service
Medium 6.8
In plain English
A medium-severity uncontrolled resource consumption in containerd from containerd. 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 5% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Official description
containerd is an open-source container runtime. Prior to 1.7.35, 2.0.12, 2.2.8, and 2.3.5, containerd on Linux with the CRI plugin enabled can indefinitely block the drainExecSyncIO goroutine in internal/cri/server/container_execsync.go when CRI ExecSync is used by exec probes or lifecycle hooks that launch long-lived background child processes retaining standard input and output pipes. The input and output drain phase has no default timeout and did not stop when the request context was canceled, so repeated ExecSync invocations can accumulate blocked goroutines and host memory. The resulting resource exhaustion can cause the OOM killer to terminate containerd, leaving the container runtime unavailable until restart. Deployments not using containerd's CRI implementation and containers not running on Linux are not affected. This issue is fixed in versions 1.7.35, 2.0.12, 2.2.8, and 2.3.5.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpine:v3.24 | containerd | 2.3.5-r0 | ALPINE-CVE-2026-53495 |
| Debian:12 | containerd | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-53495 |
| Debian:13 | containerd | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-53495 |
| Debian:14 | containerd | 2.1.9+ds1-4 | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-53495 |
| Go | github.com/containerd/containerd | 1.7.35 | GO-2026-6444 |
| Go | github.com/containerd/containerd | 1.7.35 | GHSA-7jxh-36q5-gcqv |
| Go | github.com/containerd/containerd/v2 | 2.0.12 | GHSA-7jxh-36q5-gcqv |
| Go | github.com/containerd/containerd/v2 | 2.2.8 | GHSA-7jxh-36q5-gcqv |
| Go | github.com/containerd/containerd/v2 | 2.3.5 | GHSA-7jxh-36q5-gcqv |
| Go | github.com/containerd/containerd/v2 | 2.0.12, 2.2.8, 2.3.5 | GO-2026-6444 |
| Ubuntu:22.04:LTS | containerd | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-53495 |
| Ubuntu:26.10 | containerd | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-53495 |
| Ubuntu:24.04:LTS | containerd-app | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-53495 |
| Ubuntu:26.04:LTS | containerd-app | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-53495 |
| Ubuntu:26.10 | containerd-app | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-53495 |
| Ubuntu:26.04:LTS | containerd-stable | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-53495 |
| Ubuntu:26.10 | containerd-stable | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-53495 |
Affected products (as reported)
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| containerd | containerd | < 1.7.35>= 2.0.0, < 2.0.12>= 2.2.0, < 2.2.8>= 2.3.0, < 2.3.5 |
Weakness: CWE-400 · Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
References
- https://github.com/containerd/containerd/security/advisories/GHSA-7jxh-36q5-gcqv x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/containerd/containerd/commit/22ccf4314d1fe0834f8e28f10d37d5305ef9880c x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/containerd/containerd/commit/5a2a3a759b0d2ad8c821b33c3afc20890daf6d81 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/containerd/containerd/commit/9ec55f024041d0641f6d79841e45c8781141ddaa x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/containerd/containerd/commit/eebea8c4c912f44b656c8295c9e6607a19b76650 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/containerd/containerd/commit/ff39a972369e2f12fae561a58d658bbf8f2bc318 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/containerd/containerd/releases/tag/v2.0.12 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/containerd/containerd/releases/tag/v2.2.8 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/containerd/containerd/releases/tag/v2.3.5 x_refsource_MISC