CVE-2026-13201

Medium

Elevated severity or exploit probability.

CVSS base

7.3 HIGH

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:L/A:H

EPSS — probability of exploitation (30 days)

0.2%

13.1th percentile

CISA KEV

Not listed

Weakness / dates

CWE-61

Published 2026-06-24 · modified 2026-09-08

CVSS breakdown

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:L/A:H

Attack Vector	L	Local
Attack Complexity	L	Low
Privileges Required	L	Low
User Interaction	N	None
Scope	C	Changed
Confidentiality	N	None
Integrity	L	Low
Availability	H	High

Timeline

2026-06-24 — Published (NVD)
2026-09-08 — Last modified (NVD)

Description

A flaw was found in KubeVirt's safepath package used by virt-handler. The OpenAtNoFollow function uses O_PATH|O_NOFOLLOW to obtain a file descriptor to a path leaf, but downstream operations resolve the path via /proc/self/fd/N using link-following syscalls. When the leaf is a symlink, the kernel dereferences it, defeating the intended no-follow protection. An attacker with access to a virt-launcher pod can exploit this to redirect virt-handler's IPC socket connections, including the notify socket used for VM domain lifecycle events. By hijacking this socket, the attacker can inject arbitrary domain events into virt-handler, causing it to take incorrect lifecycle actions, corrupt VM state in the Kubernetes API, or crash — resulting in sustained denial of VM management services for all virtual machines on the affected node. Additionally, the same symlink following flaw allows virt-handler to apply file ownership or permission changes to unintended host paths.

Affected

kubevirt redhat

References

Official: NVD · CVE.org