Vulnerability in Kata-Containers

CVE-2026-24054

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.

EPSS: 0.004 (35.9th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 10.0 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:H.

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-24054?
CVE-2026-24054 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Kata-Containers, classified under Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions. CVSS score: 10.0/10. Published 2026-01-29.
How severe is CVE-2026-24054?
Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 10.0 out of 10.