GitHub Advisoryadvisory · Go

GHSA-7jxh-36q5-gcqv containerd: CRI ExecSync Goroutine Leak Leads to Node-Level Denial of Service

MEDIUM Published 2026-09-09 Modified 2026-09-09 Official page ↗
Aliases
CVE-2026-53495
Ecosystem
Go
Packages
github.com/containerd/containerd/v2, github.com/containerd/containerd
Severity
Moderate
CVSS vector
CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Weaknesses
CWE-400
Reviewed
2026-09-09

Affected packages

• Go github.com/containerd/containerd/v2: < 2.0.12 → fixed in 2.0.12 • Go github.com/containerd/containerd: < 1.7.35 → fixed in 1.7.35 • Go github.com/containerd/containerd/v2: >= 2.2.0, < 2.2.8 → fixed in 2.2.8 • Go github.com/containerd/containerd/v2: >= 2.3.0, < 2.3.5 → fixed in 2.3.5

Description

Impact A bug in containerd's CRI ExecSync implementation allows exec probes and lifecycle hooks with background child processes to keep containerd's stdio-drain goroutines indefinitely blocked. Because the I/O drain phase lacks a default timeout or context cancellation handling, repeated ExecSync invocations (like probes) that include long-lived background processes against a container can cause containerd to leak goroutines and host memory. Over time, this resource exhaustion can cause the containerd daemon to be terminated by the OOM killer, rendering containerd unavailable until it is restarted. This issue affects containerd on Linux systems running with the CRI plugin enabled. Users not using containerd's CRI implementation or not running containers on Linux are not affected. Patches This bug has been fixed in containerd 2.3.5, 2.2.8, 2.0.12, and 1.7.35. Users should update to these versions to resolve the issue. Workarounds Ensure exec probes and lifecycle hooks do not launch long-lived background child processes. Credits The containerd project would like to thank XlabAI Team of Tencent Xuanwu Lab ([email protected]), including Guannan Wang, Zhanpeng Liu, Jiashuo Liang, and Guancheng Li, and @IamwhatIamSY who independently discovered and responsibly disclosed this issue in accordance with the containerd security policy. For more information If there are any questions or comments about this advisory: • Open an issue in containerd • Send an email to [email protected] To report a security issue in containerd: • Report a new vulnerability • Send an email to [email protected]

Related

Alias · CVE (1)

  • CVE-2026-53495 containerd is an open-source container runtime. vulnerability

Weakness · CWE (1)

  • CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption weakness

References