Medium [CVE-2026-55686] Host filesystem modification via malicious container image WORKDIR symlink

Podman is a tool for managing OCI containers and pods. From 3.0.0 until 5.7.1, running a malicious container image where the WORKDIR path contains a symlink can create a directory or modify ownership on the host filesystem.

Modified ownership is less likely to happen as that requires help from an untrusted/malicious process that mutates the host filesystem tree during dereferencing of the WORKDIR path, to trigger a race condition. This vulnerability is fixed in 5.7.1.

A flaw was found in Podman. This can lead to the creation of a directory or modification of ownership on the host filesystem, potentially impacting system integrity.

Exploitation requires the user to pull and run a specifically crafted malicious container image. Red Hat rates this as Moderate impact, consistent with the upstream assessment, because the attack requires a malicious image and the most severe outcome (ownership modification) requires additional help from an underprivileged user namespace.

Red Hat severity: Moderate — CVSS 5.8 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:L/A:N). Weakness: CWE-59.

Affected Red Hat products: Red Hat Hardened Images; Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9; Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4; Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization 4; Red Hat Quay 3. Red Hat fixing advisory: RHSA-2026:29954.