High severity · published May 28, 2026
CVE-2026-49238
SFTP Server VM Escape in Canonical Multipass
8.4
CVSS
0.5%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
An issue was discovered in Canonical Multipass before version 1.16.3. The host-side SFTP server component (sshfs_server), which executes with root privileges on the host, contains a path containment bypass vulnerability within its validate_path function in src/sshfs_mount/sftp_server.cpp. The function performs a plain string prefix comparison on requested paths without path separator validation or dot-dot (..) normalization. A local attacker with root privileges inside a guest virtual machine can bypass the FUSE layer by injecting raw SFTP frames (such as an SSH_FXP_OPEN request) directly into the sshfs_server process stdin/stdout pipes via procfs. By supplying a path containing directory traversal sequences that match the allowed mount prefix, the attacker can force the host-side root process to resolve the traversal and open files outside the designated mount boundary. This allows a guest-side user to read arbitrary files on the host filesystem, resulting in a virtual machine escape.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
None
Scope
Changed
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.5% · higher than 43% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
MU
Multipass · Canonical
before 1.16.3 · source: vendor, NVD
Affected product
MU
Multipass
Canonical
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