CVE-2026-53495

containerd CRI ExecSync Goroutine Leak Leading to Node-Level Denial of Service

MEDIUM
6.8
CVSS Score
Published: September 14, 2026 at 05:18 PM UTC
Updated: September 25, 2026 at 02:27 PM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorContainerd

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Severity
MEDIUM6.8
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.2%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

containerd is an open-source container runtime. Prior to 1.7.35, 2.0.12, 2.2.8, and 2.3.5, containerd on Linux with the CRI plugin enabled can indefinitely block the drainExecSyncIO goroutine in internal/cri/server/container_execsync.go when CRI ExecSync is used by exec probes or lifecycle hooks that launch long-lived background child processes retaining standard input and output pipes. The input and output drain phase has no default timeout and did not stop when the request context was canceled, so repeated ExecSync invocations can accumulate blocked goroutines and host memory. The resulting resource exhaustion can cause the OOM killer to terminate containerd, leaving the container runtime unavailable until restart. Deployments not using containerd's CRI implementation and containers not running on Linux are not affected. This issue is fixed in versions 1.7.35, 2.0.12, 2.2.8, and 2.3.5.

Affected

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

v < 1.7.35v < 2.0.12v < 2.2.8v < 2.3.5
Affected range stops below 1.7.35, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
Affected range stops below 2.0.12, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
Affected range stops below 2.2.8, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
Affected range stops below 2.3.5, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet, and no fixed version or vendor advisory is recorded against it.

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatablePartial impact

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

CVSS

6.8MEDIUMGitHub_M
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusAWAITING ANALYSIS
CWE
CWE-400

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