CVE-2026-121885

Podman: untrusted image labels allow auto-update to restart arbitrary systemd units

Published Nov 10, 2026 CVSS 3.1 · 6.5 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
A flaw was found in Podman. An attacker can trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) by supplying a container image containing crafted metadata labels. Podman's auto-update mechanism improperly trusts these image labels to determine which system services to restart. If a user runs the malicious container and auto-update processes it, arbitrary system services are restarted with the user's privileges, potentially allowing an attacker to shut down the host system when Podman runs with administrative privileges.

Remediation

Vendor Workaround

Do not use podman auto-update on untrusted containers or images. Before running an image, inspect its labels with podman image inspect --format '.Config.Labels' and verify that the io.containers.autoupdate and PODMAN_SYSTEMD_UNIT labels are not set. For existing containers, inspect their labels and ensure that auto-update labels are configured correctly and only present on containers intended to use auto-update.

Tracking

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Advisories

No advisories available
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description A flaw was found in Podman. An attacker can trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) by supplying a container image containing crafted metadata labels. Podman's auto-update mechanism improperly trusts these image labels to determine which system services to restart. If a user runs the malicious container and auto-update processes it, arbitrary system services are restarted with the user's privileges, potentially allowing an attacker to shut down the host system when Podman runs with administrative privileges.
Title Podman: untrusted image labels allow auto-update to restart arbitrary systemd units
First Time appeared Redhat
Redhat enterprise Linux
Redhat hummingbird
Redhat openshift
Weaknesses CWE-807
CPEs cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:10
cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:8
cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:9
cpe:/a:redhat:hummingbird:1
cpe:/a:redhat:openshift:4
Vendors & Products Redhat
Redhat enterprise Linux
Redhat hummingbird
Redhat openshift
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 6.5, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
redhat
Published
Updated
Nov 11, 2026, 8:05 AM
Reserved
Nov 4, 2026, 11:15 AM
Status
Awaiting Analysis
Published
Nov 10, 2026, 3:17 PM
Modified
Nov 11, 2026, 8:17 AM
Severity
Moderate
Public date
Nov 10, 2026, 2:00 PM