CVE-2026-24708 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.2) CWE-669 vulnerability in nova. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
OpenStack Nova calls qemu-img without format restrictions for resize
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-2026-24708.
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-2026-24708 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 378,156 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
nova🐍nova🐍novaReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
An issue was discovered in OpenStack Nova before 30.2.2, 31 before 31.2.1, and 32 before 32.1.1. By writing a malicious QCOW header to a root or ephemeral disk and then triggering a resize, a user may convince Nova's Flat image backend to call qemu-img without a format restriction, resulting in an unsafe image resize operation that could destroy data on the host system. Only compute nodes using the Flat image backend (usually configured with use_cow_images=False) are affected.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | nova | ≥ 32.0.0.0rc1 | No fix |
| 🐍PyPI | nova | ≥ 31.0.0.0rc1 | No fix |
| 🐍PyPI | nova | all versions | No fix |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for nova, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Remediation status
No patched version of nova has shipped for CVE-2026-24708 yet. Where your build allows, override or pin the dependency away from the vulnerable range, and apply any maintainer-recommended mitigation.
Mitigate without a patch
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-2026-24708 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2026-24708. 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.
This vulnerability is rated Important for Red Hat OpenStack Platform. An authenticated attacker can exploit unconstrained disk format handling in OpenStack Nova when invoking qemu-img. By crafting a QCOW2 header on an ephemeral or root disk, an attacker can cause qemu-img to overwrite arbitrary files on the compute…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat OpenStack Platform 16.2 | openstack-nova-1:20.6.2-2.20260317135026.8a24acd.el8ost | RHSA-2026:54757 |
| Red Hat OpenStack Platform 17.1 for RHEL 9 | ansible-collection-ansible-posix-0:1.2.0-1.4.el9ost | RHSA-2026:66401 |
| Red Hat OpenStack Services on OpenShift 18.0 | openstack-nova-1:27.5.2-18.0.20260312122217.c1c6d67.el9ost | RHSA-2026:7884 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-24708 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2026-24708 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.