Headline
CVE-2023-38496: Ineffective privileges drop when requesting container network
Apptainer is an open source container platform. Version 1.2.0-rc.2 introduced an ineffective privilege drop when requesting container network setup, therefore subsequent functions are called with root privileges, the attack surface is rather limited for users but an attacker could possibly craft a starter config to delete any directory on the host filesystems. A security fix has been included in Apptainer 1.2.1. There is no known workaround outside of upgrading to Apptainer 1.2.1.
Impact
Fix #1523 included in Apptainer 1.2.0-rc.2 has introduced an ineffective privilege drop when requesting container network setup, therefore subsequent functions are called with root privileges. The attack surface is rather limited for users but an attacker could possibly craft a starter config to delete any directory on the host filesystems. Only affects setuid installations of Apptainer.
Patches
The security fix #1578 has been included in Apptainer 1.2.1
Workarounds
There is no known workaround outside of upgrading to Apptainer 1.2.1
Related news
### Impact Fix https://github.com/apptainer/apptainer/pull/1523 included in Apptainer 1.2.0-rc.2 has introduced an ineffective privilege drop when requesting container network setup, therefore subsequent functions are called with root privileges. The attack surface is rather limited for users but an attacker could possibly craft a starter config to delete any directory on the host filesystems. Only affects setuid installations of Apptainer. ### Patches The security fix https://github.com/apptainer/apptainer/pull/1578 has been included in Apptainer 1.2.1 ### Workarounds There is no known workaround outside of upgrading to Apptainer 1.2.1