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Fencer Vulns
high 7.1

CVE-2023-30549 json

Unpatched extfs vulnerabilities are exploitable through suid-mode Apptainer

published 2023-04-25 3 y ago modified 2026-10-23 16 d ago also GHSA-j4rf-7357-f4cg , GO-2023-1738 , EUVD-2023-1328

cvss
7.1
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 30%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Apptainer is an open source container platform for Linux. There is an ext4 use-after-free flaw that is exploitable through versions of Apptainer < 1.1.0 and installations that include apptainer-suid < 1.1.8 on older operating systems where that CVE has not been patched. That includes Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, Debian 10 buster (unless the linux-5.10 package is installed), Ubuntu 18.04 bionic and Ubuntu 20.04 focal. Use-after-free flaws in the kernel can be used to attack the kernel for denial of service and potentially for privilege escalation.

Apptainer 1.1.8 includes a patch that by default disables mounting of extfs filesystem types in setuid-root mode, while continuing to allow mounting of extfs filesystems in non-setuid "rootless" mode using fuse2fs.

Some workarounds are possible. Either do not install apptainer-suid (for versions 1.1.0 through 1.1.7) or set `allow setuid = no` in apptainer.conf. This requires having unprivileged user namespaces enabled and except for apptainer 1.1.x versions will disallow mounting of sif files, extfs files, and squashfs files in addition to other, less significant impacts. (Encrypted sif files are also not supported unprivileged in apptainer 1.1.x.). Alternatively, use the `limit containers` options in apptainer.conf/singularity.conf to limit sif files to trusted users, groups, and/or paths, and set `allow container extfs = no` to disallow mounting of extfs overlay files. The latter option by itself does not disallow mounting of extfs overlay partitions inside SIF files, so that's why the former options are also needed.

Patch / fix

  • go github.com/apptainer/apptainer 1.1.8
  • lfprojects apptainer 1.1.8
  • apptainer Package Hub 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 1.3.0-bp155.3.3.2
  • squashfuse Package Hub 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 0.5.0-bp155.2.1
  • apptainer openSUSE Tumbleweed 1.1.8-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:0244-1openSUSE-SU-2024:12894-1

  • apptainer Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +3 more 1.1.8-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2023-30549

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2023-30549 updated cvss 5.5

apptainer: use after free flaw when mounting ext4

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
20 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.37% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 30% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
GitHub 3.1 7.0 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
go github.com/apptainer/apptainer
<1.1.8
1.1.8

Affected products

  • apptainer apptainer

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.