CVE-2023-38496

Apptainer's ineffective privileges drop when requesting container network

LOW
3.3
CVSS Score
Published: July 25, 2023 at 09:02 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 06:10 AM UTC
2 products affected across 2 vendorsApptainerApptainer

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Severity
LOW3.3
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.3%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

Apptainer is an open source container platform. Version 1.2.0-rc.2 introduced an ineffective privilege drop when requesting container network setup, therefore subsequent functions are called with root privileges, the attack surface is rather limited for users but an attacker could possibly craft a starter config to delete any directory on the host filesystems. A security fix has been included in Apptainer 1.2.1. There is no known workaround outside of upgrading to Apptainer 1.2.1.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v < 1.2.1
Affected range stops below 1.2.1, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

Attack Vector
LOCAL
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
REQUIRED
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
LOW
Availability
NONE
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-269CWE-271NVD-CWE-noinfo

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