CVE-2026-50540Sandbox escape and root RCE in Kata Containers
Kata Containers is an open source project focusing on a standard implementation of lightweight Virtual Machines (VMs) that perform like containers. Prior to version 4.0.0, kata-runtime is vulnerable to host code execution via an unvalidated configuration path annotation. The runtime accepts an arbitrary io.katacontainers.config_path pod annotation and loads the referenced host TOML file without restriction. As a result, a pod user who can place a file at a host-visible path can supply a configuration that selects an attacker-controlled hypervisor or virtio-fs daemon binary, executing code as root on the host. This issue is fixed in version 4.0.0.
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Kata Containers suffers from a sandbox escape vulnerability that allows a pod user to execute arbitrary code as root on the host system via a malicious configuration path. If your infrastructure relies on Kata for workload isolation, you should update to version 4.0.0 immediately.
Severity
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:NCWE-20CWE-22EPSS
No EPSS score yet (CVE may be too fresh).
Technical description
Kata Containers is an open source project focusing on a standard implementation of lightweight Virtual Machines (VMs) that perform like containers. Prior to version 4.0.0, kata-runtime is vulnerable to host code execution via an unvalidated configuration path annotation. The runtime accepts an arbitrary io.katacontainers.config_path pod annotation and loads the referenced host TOML file without restriction. As a result, a pod user who can place a file at a host-visible path can supply a configuration that selects an attacker-controlled hypervisor or virtio-fs daemon binary, executing code as root on the host. This issue is fixed in version 4.0.0.