CVE-2024-9676: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')
A vulnerability was found in Podman, Buildah, and CRI-O. A symlink traversal vulnerability in the containers/storage library can cause Podman, Buildah, and CRI-O to hang and result in a denial of service via OOM kill when running a malicious image using an automatically assigned user namespace (`--userns=auto` in Podman and Buildah). The containers/storage library will read /etc/passwd inside the container, but does not properly validate if that file is a symlink, which can be used to cause the library to read an arbitrary file on the host.
AI Analysis
Technical Summary
The vulnerability CVE-2024-9676 affects Podman, Buildah, and CRI-O through a symlink traversal issue in the containers/storage library. When running containers with the `--userns=auto` option, the library reads /etc/passwd inside the container without properly validating if the file is a symlink. An attacker can exploit this to cause the library to read arbitrary files on the host, which can cause the container runtime to hang and eventually be terminated by the system's OOM killer, resulting in a denial of service. Red Hat has released patches for this vulnerability in their container-tools module for RHEL 8 and in OpenShift Container Platform 4.16. Users are advised to apply these updates to remediate the issue.
Potential Impact
Exploitation of this vulnerability can cause Podman, Buildah, and CRI-O container runtimes to hang and be killed by the system's out-of-memory killer, resulting in a denial of service condition. There is no impact on confidentiality or integrity reported. No known exploits in the wild have been reported at this time.
Mitigation Recommendations
Red Hat has released official patches for this vulnerability in the container-tools module for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and in OpenShift Container Platform 4.16. Users should apply these updates as soon as possible to remediate the issue. Detailed update instructions are available in the Red Hat advisories (RHSA-2024:10289 for RHEL 8 and RHSA-2024:8418 for OpenShift). No additional mitigation steps are required beyond applying the vendor-provided patches.
CVE-2024-9676: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')
Description
A vulnerability was found in Podman, Buildah, and CRI-O. A symlink traversal vulnerability in the containers/storage library can cause Podman, Buildah, and CRI-O to hang and result in a denial of service via OOM kill when running a malicious image using an automatically assigned user namespace (`--userns=auto` in Podman and Buildah). The containers/storage library will read /etc/passwd inside the container, but does not properly validate if that file is a symlink, which can be used to cause the library to read an arbitrary file on the host.
AI-Powered Analysis
Machine-generated threat intelligence
Technical Analysis
The vulnerability CVE-2024-9676 affects Podman, Buildah, and CRI-O through a symlink traversal issue in the containers/storage library. When running containers with the `--userns=auto` option, the library reads /etc/passwd inside the container without properly validating if the file is a symlink. An attacker can exploit this to cause the library to read arbitrary files on the host, which can cause the container runtime to hang and eventually be terminated by the system's OOM killer, resulting in a denial of service. Red Hat has released patches for this vulnerability in their container-tools module for RHEL 8 and in OpenShift Container Platform 4.16. Users are advised to apply these updates to remediate the issue.
Potential Impact
Exploitation of this vulnerability can cause Podman, Buildah, and CRI-O container runtimes to hang and be killed by the system's out-of-memory killer, resulting in a denial of service condition. There is no impact on confidentiality or integrity reported. No known exploits in the wild have been reported at this time.
Mitigation Recommendations
Red Hat has released official patches for this vulnerability in the container-tools module for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and in OpenShift Container Platform 4.16. Users should apply these updates as soon as possible to remediate the issue. Detailed update instructions are available in the Red Hat advisories (RHSA-2024:10289 for RHEL 8 and RHSA-2024:8418 for OpenShift). No additional mitigation steps are required beyond applying the vendor-provided patches.
Technical Details
- Data Version
- 5.1
- Assigner Short Name
- redhat
- Date Reserved
- 2024-10-09T03:02:48.802Z
- Cisa Enriched
- true
- Cvss Version
- 3.1
- State
- PUBLISHED
- Vendor Advisory Urls
- [{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:10289","vendor":"Red Hat"},{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:8418","vendor":"Red Hat"},{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:8428","vendor":"Red Hat"},{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:8437","vendor":"Red Hat"},{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:8686","vendor":"Red Hat"},{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:8690","vendor":"Red Hat"},{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:8694","vendor":"Red Hat"},{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:8700","vendor":"Red Hat"},{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:8984","vendor":"Red Hat"},{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:9051","vendor":"Red Hat"},{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:9454","vendor":"Red Hat"},{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:9459","vendor":"Red Hat"},{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:9926","vendor":"Red Hat"},{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:0876","vendor":"Red Hat"},{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:2454","vendor":"Red Hat"},{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:2710","vendor":"Red Hat"},{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:3301","vendor":"Red Hat"},{"url":"https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-9676","vendor":"Red Hat"}]
Threat ID: 682d68e7d4f2164cc924150f
Added to database: 5/21/2025, 5:47:19 AM
Last enriched: 4/24/2026, 11:07:36 PM
Last updated: 5/9/2026, 4:34:33 AM
Views: 68
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