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🛡️ CVE-2026-53489 — containerd

🟠 CVSS 8.0 — High ✅ No Known Exploit CWE-61 NVD
8.0
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

Arbitrary host CRI log file read via symlink following in CRI checkpoint restore

Impact

A bug was found in containerd where the CRI plugin restores container.log from a checkpoint image without validating a symlinked path. This could result in reading an arbitrary file on the host via kubectl logs.

Patches

This bug has been fixed in the following containerd versions:

  • 2.3.2
  • 2.2.5
  • 2.1.9

Users should update to these versions to resolve the issue.

Workarounds

Ensure that only trusted images and checkpoints are used.

Credits

The containerd project would like to thank @gouldnicholas and @davidrxchester, Yuming Zhang and Song Li of Zhejiang University, Sangwon Ryu (@sangwon090), Henry Beberman (@hbeberman) of Microsoft, the GKE Security Team using Gemini, Anthropic Research, in collaboration with Claude, Robert Prast (@robertprast),

Kyle Elliott (@kyle-elliott-tob) of Trail of Bits, and Zhenchen Wang (@Plucky923), who independently discovered and responsibly disclosed 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 none, availability none.

CVSS metrics in full

The score comes from this vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N

  • Attack vector: Local — a local account, shell or session on the host is needed.
  • Attack complexity: Low — the attack works reliably, with no preparation.
  • Privileges required: Low — an ordinary user account is enough.
  • User interaction: None — nobody has to be tricked into anything.
  • Scope: Changed — a successful attack reaches components beyond the vulnerable one.
  • Confidentiality impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.
  • Integrity impact: None.
  • Availability impact: None.

Weakness class

CVE-2026-53489 is classified as CWE-61: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following. The product, when opening a file or directory, does not sufficiently account for when the file is a symbolic link that resolves to a target outside of the intended control sphere.

Affected software

CVE-2026-53489 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 2 July 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from NVD.

References

github.com

Other advisories for this package

containerd has other advisories on record. If you are patching this one, these are worth checking on the same host:

Same weakness in other software

These advisories are the same class of weakness (CWE-61: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following) in other software:

Details

Severity MEDIUM
CVSS Score 8.0
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N
CWE CWE-61
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source NVD
Published 2026-07-01
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2026-07-02
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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