Executive brief
Podman is a tool used to manage and run containerized applications. A vulnerability exists where running a specially crafted, malicious container image can cause Podman to create directories or change file ownership on the host computer's filesystem instead of inside the container. This could allow an attacker to interfere with host operations or potentially gain unauthorized access to host files.
Technical details
A symlink traversal vulnerability exists in Podman's 'resolveWorkDir()' function within libpod. When a container image defines a WORKDIR path containing symbolic links, Podman may fail to properly scope the path resolution to the container's rootfs. An attacker can exploit this by providing a malicious image that, when executed, creates directories or modifies file ownership on the host filesystem. While directory creation is straightforward, modifying ownership typically requires a race condition involving a separate malicious process on the host. The issue is fixed in version 5.7.1 by utilizing 'SecureJoin' and delegating link handling to the OCI runtime.
Affected products
- podman-container-tools Podman >= 3.0.0, < 5.7.1
Timeline
- 2026-06-17: advisory: GitHub Security Advisory published
- 2026-06-26: disclosed: CVE published to NVD
- 2026-06-26: patched: Fix released in version 5.7.1