Is CVE-2026-121885 exploited in the wild?

No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-121885 being exploited in the wild.

How severe is CVE-2026-121885?

Medium severity, with a CVSS score of 6.5, published 10 November 2026.

How is CVE-2026-121885 attacked?

It is attacked over the network, in a hosted service.

Am I affected by CVE-2026-121885?

Check whether you run Podman. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.

CVE-2026-121885: Podman auto-update untrusted image label processing DoS

CVE-2026-121885 · Severity: medium · CVSS 6.5 · Published 2026-11-10

Podman is a container runtime that allows users to run and manage containerized applications. An attacker can craft a container image with malicious metadata labels that cause Podman's auto-update feature to restart arbitrary system services, leading to denial of service or system shutdown if Podman runs with administrative privileges. The attack requires a user to pull and run an untrusted container image.

Quick answers

Is CVE-2026-121885 exploited in the wild?: No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-121885 being exploited in the wild.
How severe is CVE-2026-121885?: Medium severity, with a CVSS score of 6.5, published 10 November 2026.
Which products and versions are affected?: Podman.
Is there a fix for CVE-2026-121885?: No fixed version is recorded yet. 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 io.containers.autoupdate and PODMAN_SYSTEMD_UNIT labels are not set to unexpected values. If you run it, Junglewise drafts a mitigation that fits your setup and applies it once you approve, with senior security engineers behind it.
How is CVE-2026-121885 attacked?: It is attacked over the network, in a hosted service.
Am I affected by CVE-2026-121885?: Check whether you run Podman. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.

How to fix

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 io.containers.autoupdate and PODMAN_SYSTEMD_UNIT labels are not set to unexpected values.

Technical details

Podman's auto-update mechanism improperly trusts image metadata labels (io.containers.autoupdate, PODMAN_SYSTEMD_UNIT) without validation, allowing an attacker to specify arbitrary systemd units for restart via crafted container images. This is a reliance on untrusted input in a security decision (CWE-807). The vulnerability requires user interaction to pull and run the malicious image; in default configurations and rootless environments, the impact is limited to denial of service via service restarts rather than code execution.

Affected products

Podman

Timeline

2026-11-10: disclosed

References

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