CVE-2026-57231
HighCVSS 7.5Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk17th percentile - higher than 17% of all known CVEs
Summary
Podman from version 1.8.1 to 5.8.4 contains a vulnerability where a container image with an environment variable consisting only of a key (no value) can trick Podman into passing that variable from the host into the container. Using an asterisk (*) as the key causes all host environment variables to be passed, allowing a malicious image to exfiltrate Podman environment variables from the session where the container is launched.
Risk Assessment
The risk involves leakage of sensitive environment variables (e.g., tokens, passwords, API keys) from the host to the container, potentially leading to unauthorized access to organizational resources.
Recommendation
Immediately update Podman to version 5.8.4 or 6.0.0, which contain the fix for this vulnerability.
Other vulnerabilities in Podman
See all- CVE-2026-19730Medium
The 'podman quadlet install --replace' command opens the existing Quadlet file without O_TRUNC, which on filesystems without reflink support (e.g., default XFS on RHEL) leads to incomplete overwriting. If the new Quadlet is shorter than the original, old data remains at the end of the file, and the command completes without warning.
- CVE-2026-33414High
Podman versions 4.8.0 through 5.8.1 contain a command injection vulnerability in the HyperV backend, where the VM image path is inserted into a PowerShell string without sanitization, allowing arbitrary PowerShell commands to be executed with Podman process privileges (SYSTEM on Windows).
- CVE-2025-4953High
A flaw in Podman causes data written to `RUN --mount=type=bind` mounts during `podman build` to persist, making files created inside the container appear in the host's temporary build context directory.
- CVE-2025-9566High
A vulnerability in Podman allows an attacker to overwrite host files using the 'kube play' command when the kube file contains a Secret or ConfigMap volume mount with a symbolic link to a host file path. The attacker can control which file is overwritten but not the content written.
- CVE-2025-6032High
A flaw was found in Podman where the `podman machine init` command fails to verify the TLS certificate when downloading VM images from an OCI registry. This enables a Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attack.
- CVE-2024-11218High
A vulnerability in `podman build` and `buildah` allows container breakout via a race condition with --jobs=2 when building a malicious Containerfile. Even with SELinux enabled, it allows enumeration of files and directories on the host.
Original NVD description (English source)
Podman is a tool for managing OCI containers and pods. From 1.8.1 until 5.8.4, a container image that contains a environment variable with just a key and no value can trick podman into passing that variable from the host into the container. This is made worse by the fact that using an asterisk (*) will cause podman to pass all host variables into the container. So essentially a malicious image can exfiltrate all podman environment variables that are set in the session from where the container is launched. This vulnerability is fixed in 5.8.4 and 6.0.0.