Live › vulnerability › CVE-2025-9566
When podman kube play mounts a ConfigMap or Secret volume that already holds a symlink to a host file, running the same kube file again makes podman write the YAML-defined contents to that host path. An attacker who controls a container can use this to write arbitrary files on the host, though not choose what gets written.
Summary written from the sources below. Check the originals before acting.
First seen by InfraStack 2026-11-03 06:31 UTC, 0h before NVD. All times on this page are UTC.
Teams that run podman kube play with ConfigMap or Secret volume mounts on the host, especially where the same volume is started more than once. Exposure needs a malicious container that can create the symlink on the volume during the first start. Teams that do not use podman kube play with those mounts can skip it.
| Product | Ecosystem | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| github.com/containers/podman/v5 | go | <= 5.6.0 | 5.6.1 |
| github.com/containers/podman/v4 | go | <= 4.9.5 | – |
podman version and compare the version against the fixed release.podman kube play.5.6.1 or later.Each row is the first time that source carried this signal. The analyst’s rows are its own findings.
The podman kube play command can overwrite host files when the kube file contains a ConfigMap or Secret volume mount and the volume already contains a symlink to a host file. This allows a malicious container to write to arbitrary files on the host BUT the attacker only controls the target path not the contents that will be written to the file. The contents are defined in the yaml file by the end user.
podman kube play must be used with a ConfigMap or Secret volume mount AND must be run more than once on the same volume. All the attacker has to do is create the malicious symlink on the volume the first time it is started. After that all following starts would follow the symlink and write to the host location.
Fixed in podman v5.6.1 https://github.com/containers/podman/commit/43fbde4e665fe6cee6921868f04b7ccd3de5ad89
Don't use podman kube play with ConfigMap or Secret volume mounts.
Adding on 9/8/2025 by @TomSweeneyRedHat , this is the PR containing the test in CI: https://github.com/containers/podman/pull/27001
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