Critical severity · published Jan 29, 2026
CVE-2026-24054
Kata Containers Runtime: Host block device can be hotplugged to the VM if the container image is malformed or contains no layers
10.0
CVSS
0.5%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Kata Containers is an open source project focusing on a standard implementation of lightweight Virtual Machines (VMs) that perform like containers. In versions prior to 3.26.0, when a container image is malformed or contains no layers, containerd falls back to bind-mounting an empty snapshotter directory for the container rootfs. When the Kata runtime attempts to mount the container rootfs, the bind mount causes the rootfs to be detected as a block device, leading to the underlying device being hotplugged to the guest. This can cause filesystem-level errors on the host due to double inode allocation, and may lead to the host's block device being mounted as read-only. Version 3.26.0 contains a patch for the issue.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
High
Availability
High
Scope
Changed
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
KA
kata-containers · kata-containers
< 3.26.0 · source: vendor
KC
Kata Containers · Katacontainers
before 3.26.0 · source: NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-24054
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-24054
Patch
https://github.com/containerd/containerd/blob/d939b6af5f8536c2cae85e919e7c40070557df0e/plugins/snapshots/overlay/overlay.go#L564-L581
Patch
https://github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/blob/a164693e1afead84cd01d5bc3575e2cbfe64ce35/src/runtime/virtcontainers/container.go#L1122-L1126
Patch
https://github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/blob/c7d0c270ee7dfaa6d978e6e07b99dabdaf2b9fda/src/runtime/virtcontainers/container.go#L1616-L1623
Patch
https://github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/commit/20ca4d2d79aa5bf63aa1254f08915da84f19e92a
Exploit
https://github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/security/advisories/GHSA-5fc8-gg7w-3g5c
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