CVE-2026-24834
CriticalCVSS 9.3Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk13th percentile - higher than 13% of all known CVEs
Summary
A vulnerability in Kata Containers prior to version 3.27.0 with Cloud Hypervisor allows a container user to modify the guest VM filesystem, leading to arbitrary code execution as root in that VM. The issue does not affect the host or other containers/VMs on the same host, but on arm64 with QEMU lacking NVDIMM read-only support, a guest write could reach the image file.
Risk Assessment
The risk involves privilege escalation within a Kata container, potentially leading to full control of the guest VM and possible data integrity compromise in the filesystem.
Recommendation
Immediately upgrade Kata Containers to version 3.27.0 or later, which includes a patch for this vulnerability.
Original NVD description (English source)
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 3.27.0, an issue in Kata with Cloud Hypervisor allows a user of the container to modify the file system used by the Guest micro VM ultimately achieving arbitrary code execution as root in said VM. The current understanding is this doesn’t impact the security of the Host or of other containers / VMs running on that Host (note that arm64 QEMU lacks NVDIMM read-only support: It is believed that until the upstream QEMU gains this capability, a guest write could reach the image file). Version 3.27.0 patches the issue.