youki container escape and denial of service due to arbitrary write gadgets and procfs write redirects

Description

Impact

youki’s apparmor handling performs insufficiently strict write-target validation, which—combined with path substitution during pathname resolution—can allow writes to unintended procfs locations.

Weak write-target check
youki only verifies that the destination lies somewhere under procfs. As a result, a write intended for /proc/self/attr/apparmor/exec can succeed even if the path has been redirected to /proc/sys/kernel/hostname(which is also in procfs).

Path substitution
While resolving a path component-by-component, a shared-mount race can substitute intermediate components and redirect the final target.

This is a different project, but the core logic is similar to the CVE in runc. Issues were identified in runc, and verification was also conducted in youki to confirm the problems.
https://github.com/opencontainers/runc/security/advisories/GHSA-cgrx-mc8f-2prm

Credits

Thanks to Li Fubang (@lifubang from acmcoder.com, CIIC) and Tõnis Tiigi (@tonistiigi from Docker) for both independently discovering runc's original vulnerability, as well as Aleksa Sarai (@cyphar from SUSE) for the original research into this class of security issues and solutions.

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
high
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Open repository advisory ↗
Source code
Browse source ↗
Published (advisory)
2025-11-05 18:45:18 UTC
Updated
2025-11-15 02:25:31 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2025-11-05 18:45:18 UTC
NVD published
2025-11-05

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.05% 14.71%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
10.0 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
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:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
7.3 4.0
CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:A/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
Attacker needs local access on the target system.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and stable.
Attack requirements (AT:P)
Additional preconditions must be present for exploitation.
Privileges required (PR:L)
Low privileges are required.
User interaction (UI:A)
User interaction is required in an active way.
Vulnerable system confidentiality impact (VC:H)
High confidentiality impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system integrity impact (VI:H)
High integrity impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system availability impact (VA:H)
High availability impact on the vulnerable system.
Subsequent system confidentiality impact (SC:H)
High confidentiality impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system integrity impact (SI:H)
High integrity impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system availability impact (SA:H)
High availability impact on subsequent systems.

Identifiers

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-61 UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
CWE-363 Race Condition Enabling Link Following

Credits

  • saku3 (reporter)
  • cyphar (remediation_developer)

Affected packages (1)

Vulnerable version ranges and first patched releases as published by GitHub.

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
rust youki < 0.5.7 0.5.7

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence