VulnerabilityPublished 22 Jan 2026Updated 26 Jan 2026

CVE-2026-23954: lxc incus · Path Traversal

Affects lxc incusSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 8.7 High.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 14:05 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

8.7High

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 55% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N

Attack Vector: Adjacent
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Changed
Confidentiality: High
Integrity: High
Availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Adjacent: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack, but the attack is limited at the protocol level to a logically adjacent topology. This can mean an attack must be launched from the same shared physical (e.g., Bluetooth or IEEE 802.11) or logical (e.g., local IP subnet) network, or from within a secure or otherwise limited administrative domain (e.g., MPLS, secure VPN to an administrative network zone).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Changed: An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.
Confidentiality: High: There is total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all resources within the impacted component being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact.
Integrity: High: There is a total loss of integrity, or a complete loss of protection. For example, the attacker is able to modify any/all files protected by the impacted component. Alternatively, only some files can be modified, but malicious modification would present a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 22 Jan 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
lxcincus	Affected >=6.1.0 <=6.20.0 <=6.0.5	Fixed in–
GitHublxc/incus`pkg:github/lxc/incus`Other threats	Affected <=6.0.5	Fixed in–

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

European organizations should immediately audit their use of Incus and identify systems running affected versions (<=6.21.0 and <=6.0.5). Until patches are released, restrict membership of the 'incus' group to trusted administrators only, minimizing the number of users able to launch containers with custom images. Implement strict controls and monitoring on container image sources, disallowing untrusted or user-supplied images. Employ file integrity monitoring on host systems to detect unauthorized file modifications. Consider isolating Incus hosts in segmented network zones with limited access to critical infrastructure. Use container runtime security tools to monitor for suspicious template usage or unexpected file system operations. Prepare to deploy patches promptly once available and test updates in controlled environments before production rollout. Additionally, review and harden host OS security configurations to limit the impact of potential arbitrary command execution. Engage in threat hunting to detect any early exploitation attempts and maintain up-to-date incident response plans tailored to container escape scenarios.

Description

Incus is a system container and virtual machine manager. Versions 6.21.0 and below allow a user with the ability to launch a container with a custom image (e.g a member of the ‘incus’ group) to use directory traversal or symbolic links in the templating functionality to achieve host arbitrary file read, and host arbitrary file write. This ultimately results in arbitrary command execution on the host. When using an image with a metadata.yaml containing templates, both the source and target paths are not checked for symbolic links or directory traversal. This can also be exploited in IncusOS. A fix is planned for versions 6.0.6 and 6.21.0, but they have not been released at the time of publication.

Impact

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a significant risk to the security of containerized and virtualized environments managed by Incus. Successful exploitation could lead to unauthorized access to sensitive host files, modification of critical system configurations, and execution of arbitrary commands with host-level privileges. This could result in data breaches, service disruption, and lateral movement within enterprise networks. Organizations in sectors with high container adoption such as finance, telecommunications, and government are particularly at risk. The ability to escalate from container-level privileges to host compromise undermines the isolation guarantees of containerization, potentially affecting multi-tenant environments and cloud service providers operating in Europe. Given the planned fixes are not yet available, the window of exposure remains open, increasing the urgency for mitigation. Additionally, the vulnerability could be leveraged in targeted attacks or ransomware campaigns, especially in countries with strategic infrastructure or critical services relying on Incus.

CWE-22Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #6OWASP Top 10 A01:2025: Broken Access Control (opens in a new tab)
The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory.
Implementation · Input Validation
Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
Architecture and Design
For any security checks that are performed on the client side, ensure that these checks are duplicated on the server side, in order to avoid CWE-602. Attackers can bypass the client-side checks by modifying values after the checks have been performed, or by changing the client to remove the client-side checks…
Implementation · Input Validation
Inputs should be decoded and canonicalized to the application's current internal representation before being validated (CWE-180). Make sure that the application does not decode the same input twice (CWE-174).
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Authorization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V12.3.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Path Traversal (opens in a new tab)
Using Slashes and URL Encoding Combined to Bypass Validation Logic (opens in a new tab)
Manipulating Web Input to File System Calls (opens in a new tab)
Using Escaped Slashes in Alternate Encoding (opens in a new tab)
Using Slashes in Alternate Encoding (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 30 Jan 2026, 09:40 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-22

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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