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Fencer Vulns
low 2.7

CVE-2023-32684 json

In Lima, a malicious disk image could read a single file on the host filesystem as a qcow2/vmdk backing file

published 2023-05-30 3 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GHSA-f7qw-jj9c-rpq9 , GO-2023-1803 , EUVD-2023-1529

cvss
2.7
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 18%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Lima launches Linux virtual machines, typically on macOS, for running containerd. Prior to version 0.16.0, a virtual machine instance with a malicious disk image could read a single file on the host filesystem, even when no filesystem is mounted from the host. The official templates of Lima and the well-known third party products (Colima, Rancher Desktop, and Finch) are unlikely to be affected by this issue. To exploit this issue, the attacker has to embed the target file path (an absolute or a relative path from the instance directory) in a malicious disk image, as the qcow2 (or vmdk) backing file path string. As Lima refuses to run as the root, it is practically impossible for the attacker to read the entire host disk via `/dev/rdiskN`. Also, practically, the attacker cannot read at least the first 512 bytes (MBR) of the target file. The issue has been patched in Lima in version 0.16.0 by prohibiting using a backing file path in the VM base image.

Patch / fix

  • go github.com/lima-vm/lima 0.16.0
  • linuxfoundation lima 0.16.0

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
21 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.27% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 18% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 2.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N
NVD 3.1 2.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
GitHub 3.1 2.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
go github.com/lima-vm/lima
<0.16.0
0.16.0

Affected products

  • lima-vm lima

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-552 Files or Directories Accessible to External Parties

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.