GHSA-q4q8-7f2j-9h9f is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.9) Path Traversal vulnerability in github.com/lxc/incus/v6. A fix is available for github.com/lxc/incus/v6 — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Incus has an abitrary file write through its systemd-creds options
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- 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 GHSA-q4q8-7f2j-9h9f.
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
GHSA-q4q8-7f2j-9h9f 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 379,842 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/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
Incus instances have an option to provide credentials to systemd in the guest. For containers, this is handled through a shared directory. An attacker can use the name of a systemd credential to escape that directory and overwrite arbitrary files on the host system.
This can in turn be used to perform local privilege escalation or cause a DoS.
Details
An attacker can set a configuration key named something like systemd.credential.../../../../../../root/.bashrc to cause Incus to write outside of the credentials directory associated with the container. This makes use of the fact that the Incus syntax for such credentials is systemd.credential.XYZ where XYZ can itself contain more periods.
While it's not possible to read any data this way, it's possible to write to arbitrary files as root, enabling both privilege escalation and denial of service attacks.
Credit
This issue was discovered and reported by the team at 7asecurity
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/lxc/incus/v6 | all versions | 6.23.0go get github.com/lxc/incus/v6@v6.23.0 |
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, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/lxc/incus/v6 to 6.23.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-q4q8-7f2j-9h9f is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Resolve every user-supplied path to its canonical form and reject anything that escapes the intended directory, and run the component under an account that has no read or write access outside the directory it legitimately serves.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like GHSA-q4q8-7f2j-9h9f can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-q4q8-7f2j-9h9f. 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.
Critical: A path traversal vulnerability in Incus allows an attacker with the ability to configure Incus instances to write to arbitrary files as the root user. This can lead to privilege escalation and denial of service within the system. This issue affects Incus, which is available as a community project.
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.Source: Red Hat security advisory for GHSA-q4q8-7f2j-9h9f (CC BY 4.0)
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-q4q8-7f2j-9h9f in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-q4q8-7f2j-9h9f across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.