Your RSA-2048 keys break in 2030. Find every one of them before attackers do.
🐹
🐹 Go
Not in CISA KEV
MEDIUM severity

CVE-2021-41190 — distribution-spec

MEDIUMFix: opencontainers/distribution-spec@ac28cac

CVE-2021-41190 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5) CWE-843 vulnerability in github.com/opencontainers/distribution-spec. A fix is available for github.com/opencontainers/distribution-spec — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Clarify Content-Type handling

Also known asGHSA-mc8v-mgrf-8f4m
Published
Updated
Affected
1 pkg
Patched
1 / 1
Exploits
None indexed
Exploitation data as of Oct 12, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
2.2%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs82th percentile — riskier than 82% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%0.93%1.87%2.80%0.4%2.2%Apr 26Aug 26Oct 26

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

CVE-2021-41190 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.

Where this sits among everything scored

Of 385,987 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.

Real-World Exposure

1 pkg affected
🐹github.com/opencontainers/distribution-spec

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

Impact

In the OCI Distribution Specification version 1.0.0 and prior, the Content-Type header alone was used to determine the type of document during push and pull operations. Documents that contain both “manifests” and “layers” fields could be interpreted as either a manifest or an index in the absence of an accompanying Content-Type header. If a Content-Type header changed between two pulls of the same digest, a client may interpret the resulting content differently.

Patches

The OCI Distribution Specification will be updated to require that a mediaType value present in a manifest or index match the Content-Type header used during the push and pull operations.

Workarounds

Clients pulling from a registry may distrust the Content-Type header and reject an ambiguous document that contains both “manifests” and “layers” fields or “manifests” and “config” fields.

References

https://github.com/opencontainers/image-spec/security/advisories/GHSA-77vh-xpmg-72qh

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
🐹Gogithub.com/opencontainers/distribution-specall versions1.0.1go get github.com/opencontainers/distribution-spec@v1.0.1

Affected Products

3 products · 4 configurations
OS
fedorafedoraproject
2 versions
3435
Application
open container initiative distribution specificationlinuxfoundation
≤ 1.0.0
range
Application
open container initiative image format specificationlinuxfoundation
≤ 1.0.1
range

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/opencontainers/distribution-spec, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update github.com/opencontainers/distribution-spec to 1.0.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2021-41190 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. Workarounds

    If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.

Fixing This On Your OS

If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.

Red HatLow

As a consequence of the OCI Image Specification (and OCI Distribution Specification [1]), container runtime engines (like containerd, moby - Docker Engine, cri-o) deliver updates to adopt new `mediaType` field used for identification of the document type. Even though some Red Hat products rely on container engine, the…

ProductFixed inAdvisory
OADP-1.0-RHEL-8oadp/oadp-registry-rhel8:1.0.1-3RHSA-2022:0687
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8container-tools:rhel8-8070020220929222448.39077419RHSA-2022:7457
Red Hat Migration Toolkit for Containers 1.7rhmtc/openshift-migration-controller-rhel8:v1.7.1-7RHSA-2022:1734
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.10cri-o-0:1.23.0-92.rhaos4.10.gitdaab4d1.el7RHSA-2022:0055
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.11openshift4/ose-docker-builder:v4.11.0-202208020235.p0.gb500d85.assembly.streamRHSA-2022:5069
RHACS-3.70-RHEL-8advanced-cluster-security/rhacs-collector-rhel8:3.70.0-2RHSA-2022:4880

Frequently Asked Questions

### Impact In the OCI Distribution Specification version 1.0.0 and prior, the Content-Type header alone was used to determine the type of document during push and pull operations. Documents that contain both “manifests” and “layers” fields could be interpreted as either a manifest or an index in the absence of an accompanying Content-Type header. If a Content-Type header changed between two pulls of the same digest, a client may interpret the resulting content differently. ### Patches The OCI Distribution Specification will be updated to require that a `mediaType` value present in a manifest
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2021-41190 in your dependencies?

Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.

Scan my dependencies How O3 SCA works
CVE-2021-41190: distribution-spec — Fixed in 1.0.1