Quick answers
- Is CVE-2026-16033 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-16033 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2026-16033?
- High severity, with a CVSS score of 8.5, published 12 August 2026.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- Canonical LXD 4.0.0 through 5.0.7.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-16033?
- A patch was published on 2026-07-31: Fixed in LXD 4.0.12 and 5.0.7+ Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.
- How is CVE-2026-16033 attacked?
- It is attacked over the network.
- Am I affected by CVE-2026-16033?
- Check whether you run Canonical LXD at an affected version. 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.
Technical details
A path traversal vulnerability (CWE-22) exists in LXD's QEMU/VM driver template processing (driver_qemu.go, templateApplyNow function). Unlike the LXC container driver which was patched for CVE-2026-48752 with proper path validation, the QEMU driver lacks safeguards when processing template file paths from image metadata. An authenticated attacker who can create or launch a VM from a custom image or restore a VM backup can craft malicious metadata.yaml containing path traversal sequences (e.g., "../../../../etc/shadow") to read arbitrary host files or write root-owned files with a .out suffix. The vulnerability requires authentication and the ability to provide a custom image, but no user interaction is needed once the VM is launched. Patches are available in versions 4.0.12 and 5.0.7 and later.
Affected products
- Canonical LXD 4.0.0 through 5.0.7
Timeline
- 2026-07-31: disclosed
- 2026-08-12: advisory
- 2026-07-31: patched: Fixed in LXD 4.0.12 and 5.0.7+