CVE-2026-41579CWE-61

runc: Malicious image with /dev symlink can trigger limited host filesystem integrity violations

Low · published July 1, 2026

CVSS v3.1
3.3
EPSS
0%
Percentile
7.8
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

runc is a CLI tool for spawning and running containers according to the OCI specification. In versions prior to 1.3.6, 1.4.0-rc.1, 1.4.0-rc.12, 1.5.0-rc.1, and 1.5.0-rc.1, when setting up the container rootfs, setupPtmx and setupDevSymlinks call os.Remove and os.Symlink with a filepath.Join string which allow an image with /dev as a symlink to trick runc into deleting files called ptmx on the host or creating a hardcoded set of symlinks with specific names and targets in an arbitrary pre-existing host directory. This issue is not exploitable under Docker, because Docker creates a top-level read-only layer that masks any malicious /dev symlink present in the container image — unlike some other Linux container tooling, whose higher-level runtimes built on runc remain exposed to exploitation via a malicious image. This issue has been fixed in versions 1.3.6, 1.4.3 and 1.5.0.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v3.1
3.3 · LOW
Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00186 · 7.8th percentile
Weakness
CWE-61 · UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
Published
2026-07-01T00:02Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 01 JUL 00:02Z
    runc: Malicious image with /dev symlink can trigger limited host filesystem integrity violations
    cvelistv5