🛡️ CVE-2026-53488 — containerd

🟠 CVSS 8.8 — High ✅ No Known Exploit CWE-20 NVD
8.8
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

containerd CRI — image-config LABEL flows to restart-monitor binary:// logger: host-root command execution from an image pull

Impact

A bug was found in containerd where the CRI plugin propagates labels from an image config (LABEL instruction in Dockerfile) to a container without validation. This may result in executing an arbitrary command on the host, via a plugin that consumes container labels for some operations.

Patches

This bug has been fixed in the following containerd versions:

  • 2.3.2
  • 2.2.5
  • 2.1.9
  • 2.0.10
  • 1.7.33

Users should update to these versions to resolve the issue.

Workarounds

Ensure that only trusted images are used.

Credits

The containerd project would like to thank Anthropic Research, in collaboration with Claude, the GKE Security Team using Gemini, and Robert Prast (@robertprast) for independently discovering and responsibly disclosing this issue in accordance with the [containerd security policy](https://github.com/containerd/project/blob/main/SECURITY.md).

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

To report a security issue in containerd:

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached with local access to the system, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs low-level privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. The scope is changed, meaning a successful attack can affect components beyond the vulnerable one. Rated impact: confidentiality high, integrity high, availability high.

Weakness class

CVE-2026-53488 is classified as CWE-20: Improper Input Validation. The application accepts input without checking that it has the expected form, so malformed values reach code that assumes they are well formed.

Affected software

CVE-2026-53488 is recorded against 3 packages.

  • containerd (from 2.3.0 up to 2.3.2)
  • github.com/containerd/containerd
  • github.com/containerd/containerd/v2

Timeline and source

Published on 1 July 2026 and last revised on 3 July 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from NVD.

References

github.com

Details

Severity HIGH
CVSS Score 8.8
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
CWE CWE-20
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source NVD
Published 2026-07-01
Updated 2026-08-12
Modified 2026-07-03
Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
containerd 2.3.0 2.3.2
github.com/containerd/containerd — —
github.com/containerd/containerd/v2 — —

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