CVE-2024-45310 is a low-severity (CVSS 3.6) CWE-61 vulnerability in github.com/opencontainers/runc. A fix is available for github.com/opencontainers/runc — see the affected versions and patch details below.
runc can be confused to create empty files/directories on the host
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2024-45310.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2024-45310 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,636 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
github.com/opencontainers/runc🐹github.com/opencontainers/runcReal-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
runc 1.1.13 and earlier as well as 1.2.0-rc2 and earlier can be tricked into creating empty files or directories in arbitrary locations in the host filesystem by sharing a volume between two containers and exploiting a race with os.MkdirAll. While this can be used to create empty files, existing files will not be truncated.
An attacker must have the ability to start containers using some kind of custom volume configuration. Containers using user namespaces are still affected, but the scope of places an attacker can create inodes can be significantly reduced. Sufficiently strict LSM policies (SELinux/Apparmor) can also in principle block this attack -- we suspect the industry standard SELinux policy may restrict this attack's scope but the exact scope of protection hasn't been analysed.
This is exploitable using runc directly as well as through Docker and Kubernetes.
The CVSS score for this vulnerability is CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:N/I:L/A:N (Low severity, 3.6).
Workarounds
Using user namespaces restricts this attack fairly significantly such that the attacker can only create inodes in directories that the remapped root user/group has write access to. Unless the root user is remapped to an actual user on the host (such as with rootless containers that don't use /etc/sub[ug]id), this in practice means that an attacker would only be able to create inodes in world-writable directories.
A strict enough SELinux or AppArmor policy could in principle also restrict the scope if a specific label is applied to the runc runtime, though we haven't thoroughly tested to what extent the standard existing policies block this attack nor what exact policies are needed to sufficiently restrict this attack.
Patches
Fixed in runc v1.1.14 and v1.2.0-rc3.
mainpatches:release-1.1patches:
Credits
Thanks to Rodrigo Campos Catelin (@rata) and Alban Crequy (@alban) from Microsoft for discovering and reporting this vulnerability.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/opencontainers/runc | all versions | 1.1.14go get github.com/opencontainers/runc@v1.1.14 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/opencontainers/runc | ≥ 1.2.0-rc.1&&< 1.2.0-rc.3 | 1.2.0-rc.3go get github.com/opencontainers/runc@v1.2.0-rc.3 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/opencontainers/runc, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/opencontainers/runc to 1.1.14 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-45310 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
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.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2024-45310 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2024-45310. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
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.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Ceph Storage 9 | rhceph/grafana-rhel10:1771399331 | RHSA-2026:3406 |
| Red Hat Openshift Data Foundation 4.22 | odf4/cephcsi-rhel9:1782932114 | RHSA-2026:37387 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-45310 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2024-45310 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.