MediumCVE-2026-53495

    containerd CRI ExecSync Goroutine Leak Leading to Node-Level Denial of Service (CVE-2026-53495)

    Published Last modified Sources: SUSE, BSI, CVE.org, OSV, Hersteller, Msrc Update Guide

    What is affected, what to do

    containerd is an open-source container runtime. Prior to 1.7.35, 2.0.12, 2.2.8, and 2.3.5, containerd on Linux with the CRI plugin enabled can indefinitely block the drainExecSyncIO goroutine in internal/cri/server/container_execsync.go when CRI ExecSync is used by exec probes or lifecycle hooks that launch long-lived background child processes retaining standard input and output pipes.

    Update Containerd to version 1.7.35.

    Affected
    • Containerd gte 2.0.0, < 2.0.12..*
    • Containerd lt *..1.7.35
    Fixed in
    • Containerd 1.7.35

    Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability

    Metrics

    6.8

    Priority

    XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.

    Source: Vendor (CNA), CVSS v4

    6.8

    CVSS v4

    Severity Medium on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: SUSE, BSI, CVE.org, OSV, Hersteller, Msrc Update Guide

    0.2 %

    EPSS score

    Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 5.3

    Show all metrics
    Severity
    Medium
    Priority (0–325)

    The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?

    Read in glossary
    61.52 Methodology
    Exploit maturity

    An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.

    Read in glossary
    no public PoC known
    XIEM Effective CVSS

    XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.

    Read in glossary
    6.8 Methodology
    CVSS v4

    CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.

    Read in glossary
    6.8
    EPSS score

    The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.

    Read in glossary
    0.2 %
    Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.
    EPSS percentile

    The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.

    Read in glossary
    5.3
    Low — this CVE sits in the lower 10% of all CVEs scored today.
    KEV status

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    —
    Published
    CWE

    CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.

    Read in glossary
    CWE-400

    Detection rules

    No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.

    Classification under NIS2 and CRA

    Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.

    NIS2

    NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.

    Read in glossary
    Handle the vulnerability in regular vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2.
    CRA

    The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.

    Read in glossary
    From 11.12.2027, Annex I Part II CRA requires manufacturers of affected products with digital elements to handle vulnerabilities without delay and provide security updates.
    ISO/IEC 27001

    ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.

    Read in glossary
    Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.

    Description

    containerd is an open-source container runtime. Prior to 1.7.35, 2.0.12, 2.2.8, and 2.3.5, containerd on Linux with the CRI plugin enabled can indefinitely block the drainExecSyncIO goroutine in internal/cri/server/container_execsync.go when CRI ExecSync is used by exec probes or lifecycle hooks that launch long-lived background child processes retaining standard input and output pipes. The input and output drain phase has no default timeout and did not stop when the request context was canceled, so repeated ExecSync invocations can accumulate blocked goroutines and host memory. The resulting resource exhaustion can cause the OOM killer to terminate containerd, leaving the container runtime unavailable until restart. Deployments not using containerd's CRI implementation and containers not running on Linux are not affected. This issue is fixed in versions 1.7.35, 2.0.12, 2.2.8, and 2.3.5.

    Source: suse_csaf, BSI WID Portal, BSI CSAF, cvelistv5, OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities), GitHub Security Advisories, NVD (NIST), Microsoft Security Update Guide

    Affected products

    The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.

    Affected products
    Affected versionsFixed in
    containerdcontainerd
    • < 1.7.35
    • ≥ 2.0.0, < 2.0.12
    • 1.7.35
    • —
    DockerDesktop
    • < 4.92.0
    • 4.92.0

    Vendors and products

    Weakness classes (CWE)

    • CWE-400Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

      Class

      The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.

      Entry at MITRE CWE-400

    References & sources

    • github.comcontainerd/containerd/security/advisories/GHSA-7jxh-36q5-gcqvweb, x_refsource_CONFIRM
    • github.comcontainerd/containerdpackage
    • github.comcontainerd/containerd/releases/tag/v1.7.35web
    • github.comcontainerd/containerd/releases/tag/v2.0.12web, x_refsource_MISC
    • github.comcontainerd/containerd/releases/tag/v2.2.8web, x_refsource_MISC
    • github.comcontainerd/containerd/releases/tag/v2.3.5web, x_refsource_MISC
    • github.comcontainerd/containerd/commit/22ccf4314d1fe0834f8e28f10d37d5305e…x_refsource_MISC
    • github.comcontainerd/containerd/commit/5a2a3a759b0d2ad8c821b33c3afc20890d…x_refsource_MISC
    • github.comcontainerd/containerd/commit/9ec55f024041d0641f6d79841e45c87811…x_refsource_MISC
    • github.comcontainerd/containerd/commit/eebea8c4c912f44b656c8295c9e6607a19…x_refsource_MISC
    • github.comcontainerd/containerd/commit/ff39a972369e2f12fae561a58d658bbf8f…x_refsource_MISC

    Changes to this CVE

    Who changed this CVE and when: NVD (analysis, affected products, CVSS), the CVE publisher (CNA) and additional providers such as CISA (ADP).

    1. ReceivedGitHub

      CVSS V4.0: AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

      Weakness type: CWE-400

      Description added or changed

      Show 13 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Descriptionadded
      —
      containerd is an open-source container runtime. Prior to 1.7.35, 2.0.12, 2.2.8, and 2.3.5, containerd on Linux with the CRI plugin enabled can indefinitely block the drainExecSyncIO goroutine in internal/cri/server/container_execsync.go when CRI ExecSync is used by exec probes or lifecycle hooks that launch long-lived background child processes retaining standard input and output pipes. The input and output drain phase has no default timeout and did not stop when the request context was canceled, so repeated ExecSync invocations can accumulate blocked goroutines and host memory. The resulting resource exhaustion can cause the OOM killer to terminate containerd, leaving the container runtime unavailable until restart. Deployments not using containerd's CRI implementation and containers not running on Linux are not affected. This issue is fixed in versions 1.7.35, 2.0.12, 2.2.8, and 2.3.5.
      CVSSadded
      —
      AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
      Weakness type (CWE)added
      —
      CWE-400
      Affected versions (publisher)added
      —
      New affected value received. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/53xxx/CVE-2026-53495.json">CVE-2026-53495</a>
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://github.com/containerd/containerd/commit/22ccf4314d1fe0834f8e28f10d37d5305ef9880c
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://github.com/containerd/containerd/commit/5a2a3a759b0d2ad8c821b33c3afc20890daf6d81
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://github.com/containerd/containerd/commit/9ec55f024041d0641f6d79841e45c8781141ddaa
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://github.com/containerd/containerd/commit/eebea8c4c912f44b656c8295c9e6607a19b76650
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://github.com/containerd/containerd/commit/ff39a972369e2f12fae561a58d658bbf8f2bc318
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://github.com/containerd/containerd/releases/tag/v2.0.12
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://github.com/containerd/containerd/releases/tag/v2.2.8
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://github.com/containerd/containerd/releases/tag/v2.3.5
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://github.com/containerd/containerd/security/advisories/GHSA-7jxh-36q5-gcqv

      Source identifier: security-advisories@github.com

    2. Record modifiedCISA ADP

      CISA assessment (SSVC): exploitation: none known, automatable: no

      Show the original change
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      SSVC assessmentadded
      —
      {"id":"CVE-2026-53495","role":"CISA Coordinator","options":[{"exploitation":"none"},{"automatable":"no"},{"technicalImpact":"partial"}],"version":"2.0.3","timestamp":"2026-09-14T17:33:20.990571Z"}

      Source identifier: 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

    Embed badge

    Show the severity and KEV status of this vulnerability on your site – with a link back here. The image is updated hourly.

    Badge preview for CVE-2026-53495
    <a href="https://intel.neosec.eu/en/cve/CVE-2026-53495"><img src="https://intel.neosec.eu/badge/cve/CVE-2026-53495.svg?lang=en" alt="CVE-2026-53495 – NEOSEC Intel" height="20"></a>