Podman: WORKDIR symlink traversal vulnerability
Podman is a tool for managing OCI containers and pods. From 3.0.0 until 5.7.1, running a malicious container image where the WORKDIR path contains a symlink can create a directory or modify ownership on the host filesystem. Modified ownership is less likely to happen as that requires help from an untrusted/malicious process that mutates the host filesystem tree during dereferencing of the WORKDIR path, to trigger a race condition. This vulnerability is fixed in 5.7.1.
- Published
- Jun 26, 2026
- Updated
- Jun 26, 2026
- EPSS
- 0.4% · 32th percentile
- CWE
- CWE-61
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Report tools
Action score
21
Monitor
Low priority for now.
- CVSS
- 21 / 40 · 5.3 / 10
- CISA KEV
- 0 / 30 · Not listed
- EPSS
- 0 / 30 · 0.4%
CISA SSVC decision
- Exploitation
- proof of concept
- Automatable
- yes
- Technical impact
- partial
Vulnrichment: CISA's decision-tree inputs.
CNA vs NVD score
- NVD
- —
- CNA · GitHub_M
- 5.3
- NVD has not scored this yet; the score shown is the CNA’s.
The score given by the assigning authority versus NVD’s independent score. A gap means the severity is contested.
Affected systems
| Vendor | Product | CPE |
|---|---|---|
| podman project | podman | cpe:2.3:a:podman_project:podman |
Affected versions
NVD version ranges (for catalog products). Add the product to your stack with a version and matching uses these.
- podman project podman3.0.0 and later · before 5.7.1
Versions reported by the vendor
Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (GitHub_M). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.
podman-container-tools podman
- >= 3.0.0, < 5.7.1affected
Package-level exposure
OSV and GitHub Advisory data: ecosystem, package and range. SBOM matching uses this table.
| Ecosystem | Package | Affected range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian:13 | podman | all versions | — |
| Debian:14 | podman | before 5.8.1+ds1-2 | 5.8.1+ds1-2 |
| Go | github.com/containers/podman | all versions | — |
| Go | github.com/containers/podman/v2 | all versions | — |
| Go | github.com/containers/podman/v3 | up to and including 3.4.7 | — |
| Go | github.com/containers/podman/v3 | all versions | — |
| Go | github.com/containers/podman/v4 | all versions | — |
| Go | github.com/containers/podman/v4 | up to and including 4.9.5 | — |
| Go | github.com/containers/podman/v5 | before 5.7.1 | 5.7.1 |
| Red Hat:hummingbird:1 | podman | before 0:6.0.0-1.hum1 | 0:6.0.0-1.hum1 |
| Red Hat:hummingbird:1 | podman-docker | before 0:6.0.0-1.hum1 | 0:6.0.0-1.hum1 |
| SUSE:Enterprise Storage 7.1 | podman | before 4.9.5-150300.9.83.1 | 4.9.5-150300.9.83.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.3 | podman | before 4.9.5-150400.4.79.1 | 4.9.5-150400.4.79.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.5 | podman | before 4.9.5-150500.3.78.1 | 4.9.5-150500.3.78.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Micro 6.0 | podman | before 4.9.5-13.1 | 4.9.5-13.1 |
Same product
podman project: all recordsOther highest-scoring records for the same primary product.
- CVE-2022-1227A privilege escalation flaw was found in Podman.36Monitor
- CVE-2026-57231Podman: Malformed Image can trick podman run into leaking host environment variables into the container30Monitor
- CVE-2024-3056Podman: kernel: containers in shared ipc namespace are vulnerable to denial of service attack30Monitor
- CVE-2022-27649A flaw was found in Podman, where containers were started incorrectly with non-empty default permissions.30Monitor
- CVE-2022-2989An incorrect handling of the supplementary groups in the Podman container engine might lead to the sensitive information disclosure or possi28Monitor
- CVE-2021-20188A flaw was found in podman before 1.7.0.28Monitor
Remediation
Which version to upgrade to
Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.
| Product / package | Fixed version | Source |
|---|---|---|
| podman-container-tools podman | 5.7.1 · description | Vendor (CNA) |
| debian:podman | 5.8.1+ds1-2 · Debian:14 | Package registry (OSV) |
| Go:github.com/containers/podman/v5 | 5.7.1 | Package registry (OSV) |
| red hat:podman | 0:6.0.0-1.hum1 · Red Hat:hummingbird:1 | Package registry (OSV) |
| red hat:podman-docker | 0:6.0.0-1.hum1 · Red Hat:hummingbird:1 | Package registry (OSV) |
| suse:podman | 4.9.5-13.1 · SUSE:Linux Micro 6.0 | Package registry (OSV) |
Exploit status
No known public exploit
No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.
Research context
For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.
Timeline
From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.
No dated events beyond publication.
FIRST EPSS daily score; only changes of 0.01 or more are recorded (step chart).
Patch and commit links
Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.
Credits
All researchersFinders, reporters and analysts named in the CNA record. Click a name for that researcher’s other records.
No credits in the CNA record.
Variant candidates
Same product, same weakness class, within 18 months. If the patch missed the root cause, the sibling bug is here.
No nightly-computed relations.
Chain candidates
An authentication bypass and a privilege-requiring bug in the same product, published close together: combined they may become an unauthenticated path.
—
Bug bounty scope
No known public program.
Source: bounty-targets-data (public HackerOne, Bugcrowd, Intigriti, YesWeHack listings).
Technical details
Attack conditions
- Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it.
- No account or password is required.
- No user action is required.
- No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.
If successful
- Confidentiality
- none
- Integrity
- low · data or configuration can be modified
- Availability
- none
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality impact
- None
- Integrity impact
- Low
- Availability impact
- None
Weakness class (CWE)
CWE-61 · UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) FollowingCVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
nvd-secondary
Attack context
MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.
Attack patterns (CAPEC)
ATT&CK techniques
—
Noroxi analysis
No Noroxi analysis for this record yet
We don't hand-write analysis for all 385,000+ vulnerabilities; that wouldn't be honest. For notable, high-impact vulnerabilities our team writes the mechanism, detection and remediation steps.
We use this product, ask for helpChange log
- Fix✗ → ✓
For records you follow, these changes also arrive as notifications. →
References
Vendor advisories and official records. Exploit/PoC links are deliberately left out.