CVE-2021-3602

An information disclosure flaw was found in Buildah, when building containers using chroot isolation. Running processes in container builds (e.g. Dockerfile RUN commands) can access environment variables from parent and grandparent processes. When run in a container in a CI/CD environment, environment variables may include sensitive information that was shared with the container in order to be used only by Buildah itself (e.g. container registry credentials).

Published: 2022-03-03 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2021-3602 is rated Low Risk (30.4/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.32%). Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2021-3602

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.17% 0.32% +0.16%
2 2026-05-26 0.12% 0.17% +0.04%
3 2026-03-11 — 0.12% —

Full EPSS history (9 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2021-3602

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 1.8 3.6 [email protected]
1.9 2.0 LOW
AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
Access complexity (AC:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 3.4 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2021-3602

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2021-3602

GHSA-7638-r9r3-rmjj · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: go — Buildah processes using chroot isolation may leak environment values to intermediate processes

OS Trackers for CVE-2021-3602

vendor priority summary link
alpine medium CVE-2021-3602: 2 source package rows (buildah, podman); 18 state rows across 7 repos (3.17-community, 3.18-community, 3.19-community, 3.20-community, 3.21-community, 3.22-community, edge-community); fixed 14, open 4. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2021-3602
debian not yet assigned CVE-2021-3602 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (golang-github-containers-buildah), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 4, open 1. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2021-3602
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-3602
suse medium CVE-2021-3602 severity moderate: SUSE including 75 source package names (1.8.6.0.3.2.5:libseccomp2-2.5.3-150300.10.5.1, 14.1-rev1.0.0-build2.2.43:libseccomp2-2.5.3-150300.10.5.1, …), 176 product×package rows across 82 product lines (Container bci/bci-init, Container ses/7.1/ceph/haproxy, … (82 product lines)): Fixed 158, Will Not Fix 16, Known Not Affected 2. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-3602/
ubuntu medium CVE-2021-3602 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (golang-github-containers-buildah), 16 status rows across 16 suites (bionic, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): ignored 9, DNE 3, needed 3, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2021-3602

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2021-3602

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
buildah_project buildah < 1.16.8 cpe:2.3:a:buildah_project:buildah:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
buildah_project buildah >= 1.17.0, < 1.17.2 cpe:2.3:a:buildah_project:buildah:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
buildah_project buildah >= 1.19.0, < 1.19.9 cpe:2.3:a:buildah_project:buildah:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
buildah_project buildah >= 1.21.0, < 1.21.3 cpe:2.3:a:buildah_project:buildah:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux 8.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_for_ibm_z_systems 8.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_for_ibm_z_systems:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_for_power_little_endian 8.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_for_power_little_endian:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2021-3602

cvelogic Threat Intelligence