CVE-2026-24834: Kata Container to Guest micro VM privilege escalation

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-24834 is a critical (CVSS 9.4) vulnerability in kata-containers. EPSS estimates a 0.24% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 15.7% of scored vulnerabilities. 1 public exploit is recorded.

Timeline

1. 19-02-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 15-07-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

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 3.27.0, an issue in Kata with Cloud Hypervisor allows a user of the container to modify the file system used by the Guest micro VM ultimately achieving arbitrary code execution as root in said VM. The current understanding is this doesn’t impact the security of the Host or of other containers / VMs running on that Host (note that arm64 QEMU lacks NVDIMM read-only support: It is believed that until the upstream QEMU gains this capability, a guest write could reach the image file). Version 3.27.0 patches the issue.

• CWE-732Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical ResourceThe product specifies permissions for a security-critical resource in a way that allows that resource to be read or modified by unintended actors.
• CWE-281Improper Preservation of PermissionsThe product does not preserve permissions or incorrectly preserves permissions when copying, restoring, or sharing objects, which can cause them to have less restrictive permissions than intended.