CVE-2026-95838
4.6MediumPublished 12 Oct 2026 · NVD status: Awaiting Analysis · AI triage by gemini-3.8-flash
- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges needed
- None
- User interaction
- Active
- Impact
- Limited impact
- Weakness
- CWE-400, CWE-407
Impact
Attackers can exhaust host CPU, delay container startup, and degrade image-pull concurrency across unrelated deployments. They need a user or automated pipeline to pull or import a maliciously crafted container image.
Root cause
The layer unpack handler repeatedly re-traverses directories when processing opaque whiteout configurations.
Affected systems
containerd prior to 1.7.35, 2.0.12, 2.2.8, and 2.3.5
CVSS v4.0 · CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
Fix & remediation
Upgrade containerd to version 1.7.35, 2.0.12, 2.2.8, 2.3.5, or later. No interim mitigations are provided, so avoid pulling untrusted container images until patched.
$ containerd --versionAI-suggested. Run it in staging first and check it against the vendor advisory. Why?
NVD description
containerd is an open-source container runtime. Prior to 1.7.35, 2.0.12, 2.2.8, and 2.3.5, containerd's layer unpack handler repeatedly traverses directories for certain opaque whiteout configurations. A malicious image layer can trigger repeated directory traversals while opaque whiteouts are processed. Pulling or importing the image can consume CPU, delay container startup, and reduce image-pull concurrency for unrelated deployments. This issue is fixed in versions 1.7.35, 2.0.12, 2.2.8, and 2.3.5.