CVE-2026-57231
highpriority · track · 0EPSS 0.004 · 38 %ileDEEURUUSEPSS · scored 2026-10-27
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.
cvss
Technical severity, 0–10. One row per scoring source.
base score 0–10 · higher = more severe · hover a vector to decode⚠ sources disagree · medium–high · 6.9–7.5
ssvc
A stakeholder decision — act, attend, or track — from exploitation and impact.
weaknesses
The CWE weakness classes this flaw belongs to.
affected products (41)
Products and version ranges known to be affected.
advisories (3)
Vendor and ecosystem advisories describing this.
- WID-SEC-W-2026-2062Podman: Schwachstelle ermöglicht Offenlegung von InformationenDeutsch2026-06-24csaf · cert_bundDE
Ein entfernter, anonymer Angreifer kann eine Schwachstelle in Podman ausnutzen, um Informationen offenzulegen.
- GHSA-4hq8-gpf5-8p68Podman: Malformed Image can trick podman run into leaking host environment variables into the container2026-09-24ghsa · osvUS
## Summary An 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. ## Details podman run allows `--env VAR1` or `--env VAR*` which will read the variable values from the current environment and then passes them into the container. However because the same parsing logic was reused for the image config env section that means that an image variable could also gain access to that. ## Patch That image spec requires the env variables to be in the form of `key=value`, so to address this invalid formatted variables get rejected and the container will not run. Fixed in https://github.com/podman-container-tools/podman/commit/6c431b73dbf8e4b20b778644d7a80caebdb75050 ## Workaround Do not run untrusted images. Before running an image consider inspecting the config with `podman image inspect --format '{{.Config.Env}}' <image>` and check for any variables that do not have a value assigned.
- GO-2026-6594Podman: Malformed Image can trick podman run into leaking host environment variables into the container in github.com/containers/libpod2026-10-01vendor · osvUS
Podman: Malformed Image can trick podman run into leaking host environment variables into the container in github.com/containers/libpod
also known as (6)
Other names and identifiers for this entity.
sources
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references (6)
External citations — patches, advisories, analysis.
- https://github.com/podman-container-tools/podman/commit/6c431b73dbf8e4b20b778644d7a80caebdb75050cnnvd
- https://github.com/podman-container-tools/podman/security/advisories/GHSA-4hq8-gpf5-8p68cnnvd
- https://github.com/podman-container-tools/podman/commit/6c431b73dbf8e4b20b778644d7a80caebdb75050enisa_euvd
- https://github.com/podman-container-tools/podman/security/advisories/GHSA-4hq8-gpf5-8p68enisa_euvd
- https://github.com/podman-container-tools/podman/commit/6c431b73dbf8e4b20b778644d7a80caebdb75050Patchnvd
- https://github.com/podman-container-tools/podman/security/advisories/GHSA-4hq8-gpf5-8p68PatchThird Party Advisorynvd
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