Bug 2566844 (CVE-2026-121885)

Summary: CVE-2026-121885 podman: Untrusted image labels allow auto-update to restart arbitrary systemd units
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security <prodsec-ir-bot>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: akhatavk, aos-team-art-private, asdas, dpaolell, jdelft, jupierce, lgarciaa, mbiarnes, ppalepu, ppostler, prdhamdh, rhel-process-autobot, security-response-team, sghai, sidsharm, suppawar, vlaad, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in Podman. An attacker can trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) by supplying a container image containing crafted metadata labels. Podman's auto-update mechanism improperly trusts these image labels to determine which system services to restart. If a user runs the malicious container and auto-update processes it, arbitrary system services are restarted with the user's privileges, potentially allowing an attacker to shut down the host system when Podman runs with administrative privileges.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Bug Depends On: 2569675    
Bug Blocks:    
Deadline: 2026-11-10   

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-11-04 11:22:26 UTC
A flaw was found in Podman's auto-update functionality in versions 1.8.2 through 6.1.4. Podman copies image labels into containers, and auto-update trusts the io.containers.autoupdate and PODMAN_SYSTEMD_UNIT labels to determine whether a container should be updated and which systemd unit to restart. An attacker can supply a container image with crafted labels that, when run by a user and subsequently processed by auto-update, causes arbitrary systemd units to be restarted with that user's privileges. When Podman runs as root, targeting poweroff.target may shut down the host, resulting in a complete loss of availability.