Improper Preservation of Permissions in containerd (containerd containerd)

CVE-2021-43816

HIGH 8.0

At a glance

Source: NVD
EPSS: EPSS 1.81 % · percentile 79 (2026-10-29)
State: PUBLISHED
Published: 2022-01-05 18:55 UTC
Updated: 2025-04-22 18:34 UTC
Assigner: GitHub_M
NVD status: Modified

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Description

containerd is an open source container runtime. On installations using SELinux, such as EL8 (CentOS, RHEL), Fedora, or SUSE MicroOS, with containerd since v1.5.0-beta.0 as the backing container runtime interface (CRI), an unprivileged pod scheduled to the node may bind mount, via hostPath volume, any privileged, regular file on disk for complete read/write access (sans delete). Such is achieved by placing the in-container location of the hostPath volume mount at either `/etc/hosts`, `/etc/hostname`, or `/etc/resolv.conf`. These locations are being relabeled indiscriminately to match the container process-label which effectively elevates permissions for savvy containers that would not normally be able to access privileged host files. This issue has been resolved in version 1.5.9. Users are advised to upgrade as soon as possible.

Weaknesses (CWE)

CWE-281 — Improper Preservation of Permissions

References

Scores

Version	Score	Vector	Scored by
CVSS 3.1	HIGH 8.0	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H	GitHub_M
CVSS 3.1	HIGH 8.0	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H	NVD · security-advisories@github.com (Secondary)
CVSS 3.1	CRITICAL 9.1	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H	NVD · nvd@nist.gov (Primary)
CVSS 2.0	MEDIUM 6.0	AV:N/AC:M/Au:S/C:P/I:P/A:P	NVD · nvd@nist.gov (Primary)

Advisories

GHSA-mvff-h3cj-wj9c — Unprivileged pod using `hostPath` can side-step active LSM when it is SELinux
GO-2022-0278 — Unprivileged pod using `hostPath` can side-step active LSM when it is SELinux in github.com/containerd/containerd

European references

ENISA EUVD · EUVD-2022-0652
GCVE · GCVE-0-2021-43816

CERT-FR advisories

CERTFR-2026-AVI-0199 — Multiples vulnérabilités dans les produits VMware · cert.ssi.gouv.fr
CERTFR-2025-AVI-0590 — Multiples vulnérabilités dans les produits IBM · cert.ssi.gouv.fr
CERTFR-2025-AVI-0562 — Multiples vulnérabilités dans les produits IBM · cert.ssi.gouv.fr
CERTFR-2024-AVI-0350 — Multiples vulnérabilités dans les produits IBM · cert.ssi.gouv.fr
CERTFR-2024-AVI-0199 — Multiples vulnérabilités dans IBM · cert.ssi.gouv.fr

Affected configurations (NVD CPE)

cpe:2.3:a:linuxfoundation:containerd:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* ≥ 1.5.1 < 1.5.9
cpe:2.3:a:linuxfoundation:containerd:1.5.0:-:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:linuxfoundation:containerd:1.5.0:beta0:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:linuxfoundation:containerd:1.5.0:beta1:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:linuxfoundation:containerd:1.5.0:beta2:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:linuxfoundation:containerd:1.5.0:beta3:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:linuxfoundation:containerd:1.5.0:beta4:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:linuxfoundation:containerd:1.5.0:rc0:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:linuxfoundation:containerd:1.5.0:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:linuxfoundation:containerd:1.5.0:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:linuxfoundation:containerd:1.5.0:rc3:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:34:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:35:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

Affected products

Product	Versions
containerd · containerd	affected >= 1.5.0, < 1.5.9

Sources

Source	Licence
CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5)	CVE Program Terms of Use
EPSS (FIRST.org)	FIRST — attribution requested
ENISA EUVD	ENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged
CERT-FR (ANSSI)	Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0
NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feeds	Public domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD

⚠️ Improper Preservation of Permissions in containerd (containerd containerd)