High severity · published Oct 4, 2021
CVE-2021-41103
containerd is an open source container runtime with an emphasis on simplicity, robustness and portability
7.8
CVSS
0.5%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
containerd is an open source container runtime with an emphasis on simplicity, robustness and portability. A bug was found in containerd where container root directories and some plugins had insufficiently restricted permissions, allowing otherwise unprivileged Linux users to traverse directory contents and execute programs. When containers included executable programs with extended permission bits (such as setuid), unprivileged Linux users could discover and execute those programs. When the UID of an unprivileged Linux user on the host collided with the file owner or group inside a container, the unprivileged Linux user on the host could discover, read, and modify those files. This vulnerability has been fixed in containerd 1.4.11 and containerd 1.5.7. Users should update to these version when they are released and may restart containers or update directory permissions to mitigate the vulnerability. Users unable to update should limit access to the host to trusted users. Update directory permission on container bundles directories.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.5% · higher than 44% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
CO
Containerd · Linuxfoundation
before 1.4.11; 1.5.0 before 1.5.7 · source: NVD
DL
Debian Linux · Debian
11.0 · source: NVD
FE
Fedora · Fedoraproject
34; 35 · source: NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-41103
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-41103
cert-portal.siemens.com
https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/pdf/ssa-222547.pdf
Patch
https://github.com/containerd/containerd/commit/5b46e404f6b9f661a205e28d59c982d3634148f8
Third Party Advisory
https://github.com/containerd/containerd/security/advisories/GHSA-c2h3-6mxw-7mvq
lists.fedoraproject.org
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/B5Q6G6I4W5COQE25QMC7FJY3I3PAYFBB/
lists.fedoraproject.org
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/ZNFADTCHHYWVM6W4NJ6CB4FNFM2VMBIB/
security.gentoo.org
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202401-31
More from Debian Linux
10.0
CVE-2025-32433
Erlang/OTP SSH Vulnerable to Pre-Authentication RCE
10.0
CVE-2025-24201
Apple Multiple Products WebKit Out-of-Bounds Write Vulnerability
10.0
CVE-2021-44228
Apache Log4j2 JNDI features do not protect against attacker controlled LDAP and other JNDI related endpoints
10.0
CVE-2015-3306
ProFTPD Improper Access Control Vulnerability
9.8
CVE-2026-24061
GNU InetUtils Argument Injection Vulnerability
