Path Traversal in Kata-Containers

CVE-2026-50540

Kata Containers is an open source project focusing on a standard implementation of lightweight Virtual Machines (VMs) that perform like containers. Prior to version 4.0.0, kata-runtime is vulnerable to host code execution via an unvalidated configuration path annotation. The runtime accepts an arbitrary io.katacontainers.config_path pod annotation and loads the referenced host TOML file without restriction. As a result, a pod user who can place a file at a host-visible path can supply a configuration that selects an attacker-controlled hypervisor or virtio-fs daemon binary, executing code as root on the host. This issue is fixed in version 4.0.0.

Vulnerability class: Drupalgeddon 2 (CVE-2018-7600)

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 9.6 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.006 (49.0th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 49th percentile — 49.0% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-50540: held from 0.006 to 0.006.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.006 · newest: 0.006 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-50540?
CVE-2026-50540 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Kata-Containers, classified under Improper Input Validation. CVSS score: 9.6/10. Published 2026-08-07.
How severe is CVE-2026-50540?
Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.6 out of 10.