Podman: Malformed Image can trick podman run into leaking host environment variables into the container

Summary

Podman is a tool for managing OCI containers and pods. From 1.8.1 until 5.8.4, a container image that contains a environment variable with just a key and no value can trick podman into passing that variable from the host into the container. This is made worse by the fact that using an asterisk (*) will cause podman to pass all host variables into the container. So essentially a malicious image can exfiltrate all podman environment variables that are set in the session from where the container is launched. This vulnerability is fixed in 5.8.4 and 6.0.0.

Timeline

1. Jun 26, 2026, 4:29 PM UTCCVE published
2. Jun 27, 2026, 2:41 AM UTCCISA SSVC assessment

   Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial

3. Jun 27, 2026, 2:41 AM UTCRecord last updated

Affected versions

• podman-container-tools podman

  From 1.8.1 · fixed in 5.8.4

• github.com/containers/libpodGo

  From 1.8.1

• github.com/containers/podmanGo

  All versions

• github.com/containers/podman/v2Go

  All versions

• github.com/containers/podman/v3Go

  All versions

• github.com/containers/podman/v4Go

  All versions

• github.com/containers/podman/v5Go

  fixed in 5.8.4

• go.podman.io/podman/v6Go

  fixed in 6.0.0

• github.com/containers/podman/v4Go

  through 4.9.5

• github.com/containers/podman/v3Go

  through 3.4.7

• github.com/containers/podman/v2Go

  through 2.2.1

• github.com/containers/podmanGo

  From 1.8.1

References 2