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.
https://github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/security/advisories/GHSA-5fc8-gg7w-3g5c
https://github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/commit/20ca4d2d79aa5bf63aa1254f08915da84f19e92a
Published: 2026-01-29
Updated: 2026-01-29
Base Score: 6.4
Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:P
Severity: Medium
Base Score: 7.7
Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
Severity: High
Base Score: 9.3
Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:H/SA:H
Severity: Critical