CVE-2026-48785
MediumCVSS 4.8Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk4th percentile - higher than 4% of all known CVEs
Summary
Apptainer before version 1.5.1 has a vulnerability in Image.AuthorizedPath that applies plain string-prefix matching to the limit container paths directive in apptainer.conf, so an allowed path such as /data/safe also authorizes a sibling path such as /data/safe-but-unsafe. A local user can consequently run a container from a directory outside the administrator's intended allowlist when Apptainer operates in setuid mode.
Risk Assessment
A local user can run containers from unauthorized paths, potentially leading to security policy violations and potential access to unauthorized data.
Recommendation
It is recommended to upgrade Apptainer to version 1.5.1 or later, which includes the fix.
Other vulnerabilities in Apptainer
See all- CVE-2025-65105Medium
Apptainer versions less than 1.4.5 allow a container to disable two forms of the little-used --security option, specifically --security=apparmor:<profile> and --security=selinux:<label>, which otherwise restrict container operations. The --security option is documented as a root feature, but these forms also work for unprivileged users on systems where the corresponding feature is enabled. The vulnerability is fixed in 1.4.5.
- CVE-2023-38496Medium
Apptainer is an open source container platform. Version 1.2.0-rc.2 introduced an ineffective privilege drop when requesting container network setup, allowing subsequent functions to be called with root privileges.
- CVE-2023-30549High
Apptainer is an open source container platform for Linux. There is an ext4 use-after-free flaw that is exploitable through versions of Apptainer < 1.1.0 and installations that include apptainer-suid < 1.1.8 on older operating systems where that CVE has not been patched, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, Debian 10 buster, Ubuntu 18.04 bionic and Ubuntu 20.04 focal. Use-after-free flaws in the kernel can be used to attack the kernel for denial of service and potentially for privilege escalation.
Original NVD description (English source)
Apptainer is an open source container platform. Prior to version 1.5.1, Image.AuthorizedPath applies plain string-prefix matching to the limit container paths directive in apptainer.conf, so an allowed path such as /data/safe also authorizes a sibling path such as /data/safe-but-unsafe. A local user can consequently run a container from a directory outside the administrator's intended allowlist when Apptainer operates in setuid mode. Installations that do not use setuid mode or do not configure limit container paths are not affected, and unrestricted user namespaces already allow users to run containers of their choice. This issue is fixed in version 1.5.1.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS