Low severity · published Sep 15, 2026
CVE-2026-44778
Inspektor Gadget: Unprivileged container can crash USDT note parser via crafted ELF
2.9
CVSS
0.6%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Inspektor Gadget is a set of tools and framework for data collection and system inspection on Kubernetes clusters and Linux hosts using eBPF. From 0.28.0 until 0.53.1, the USDT note parser in pkg/uprobetracer/usdt.go can allow an unprivileged container to crash or exhaust the memory of the privileged Inspektor Gadget process when a custom gadget containing a SEC("usdt/...") eBPF section attaches to a crafted ELF binary. The getUsdtInfo() function reads the .note.stapsdt section without validating that DescSize is large enough for three address fields, allowing an out-of-bounds slice operation to panic, and it uses untrusted NameSize and DescSize values for allocations that can consume gigabytes of memory. The parser also invokes debug/elf without panic recovery, allowing other malformed ELF structures to terminate the process. No gadget shipped by Inspektor Gadget uses USDT probes, so only deployments using custom USDT gadgets are affected, and the demonstrated impact is denial of service rather than code execution or privilege escalation. This issue is fixed in version 0.53.1.
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.6% · higher than 50% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
IN
inspektor-gadget · inspektor-gadget
>= 0.28.0, < 0.53.1 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-44778
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-44778
github.com
https://github.com/inspektor-gadget/inspektor-gadget/commit/27263e50d6287891eee4d9a1cfae62681260e1a2
github.com
https://github.com/inspektor-gadget/inspektor-gadget/commit/aaffacc6a9e43b4de5ce8f8148e6c2d9a1ea6026
github.com
https://github.com/inspektor-gadget/inspektor-gadget/pull/5547
github.com
https://github.com/inspektor-gadget/inspektor-gadget/releases/tag/v0.53.1
github.com
https://github.com/inspektor-gadget/inspektor-gadget/security/advisories/GHSA-7cfq-5mhv-jrp9
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