Podman: untrusted image labels allow auto-update to restart arbitrary systemd units

MITRE NVD CVE.ORG JSON API

Summary

CVECVE-2026-121885
StatePUBLISHED
Assignerredhat
Source PriorityCVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published2026-11-10 15:17:15 UTC
Updated2026-11-10 15:17:15 UTC
DescriptionA flaw was found in Podman. An attacker can trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) by supplying a container image containing crafted metadata labels. Podman's auto-update mechanism improperly trusts these image labels to determine which system services to restart. If a user runs the malicious container and auto-update processes it, arbitrary system services are restarted with the user's privileges, potentially allowing an attacker to shut down the host system when Podman runs with administrative privileges.

Risk And Classification

Primary CVSS: v3.1 6.5 MEDIUM from [email protected]

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Problem Types: CWE-807 | CWE-807 Reliance on Untrusted Inputs in a Security Decision

VersionSourceTypeScoreSeverityVector
3.1[email protected]Primary6.5MEDIUMCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
3.1CNACVSS6.5MEDIUMCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CVSS v3.1 Breakdown

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Vendor Declared Affected Products

SourceVendorProductVersionPlatforms
CNA Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 Not specified Not specified
CNA Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Not specified Not specified
CNA Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Not specified Not specified
CNA Red Hat Red Hat Hardened Images Not specified Not specified
CNA Red Hat Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 Not specified Not specified

References

ReferenceSourceLinkTags
bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi [email protected] bugzilla.redhat.com
access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-121885 [email protected] access.redhat.com
CVE Program record CVE.ORG www.cve.org canonical
NVD vulnerability detail NVD nvd.nist.gov canonical, analysis

Vendor Comments And Credit

Discovery Credit

CNA: Upstream acknowledges Adel Assakaf as the original reporter. (en)

Additional Advisory Data

SourceTimeEvent
CNA2026-11-02T18:30:24.000ZReported to Red Hat.
CNA2026-11-10T14:00:00.000ZMade public.

Workarounds

CNA: Do not use podman auto-update on untrusted containers or images. Before running an image, inspect its labels with podman image inspect --format '.Config.Labels' and verify that the io.containers.autoupdate and PODMAN_SYSTEMD_UNIT labels are not set. For existing containers, inspect their labels and ensure that auto-update labels are configured correctly and only present on containers intended to use auto-update.

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