# CVE-2026-121885: Podman: untrusted image labels allow auto-update to restart arbitrary systemd units

Status: published. Published: 2026-11-10. Updated: 2026-11-10.

A flaw was found in Podman. An attacker can trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) by supplying a container image containing crafted metadata labels. Podman's auto-update mechanism improperly trusts these image labels to determine which system services to restart. If a user runs the malicious container and auto-update processes it, arbitrary system services are restarted with the user's privileges, potentially allowing an attacker to shut down the host system when Podman runs with administrative privileges.

## Remediation

- workaround: Do not use podman auto-update on untrusted containers or images. Before running an image, inspect its labels with podman image inspect --format '.Config.Labels' and verify that the io.containers.autoupdate and PODMAN_SYSTEMD_UNIT labels are not set. For existing containers, inspect their labels and ensure that auto-update labels are configured correctly and only present on containers intended to use auto-update. (source: CNA: redhat)

## Affected products and versions

- Red Hat / Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 (podman): Version range not reported. Source: CNA: redhat
- Red Hat / Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (container-tools:rhel8/podman): Version range not reported. Source: CNA: redhat
- Red Hat / Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (podman): Version range not reported. Source: CNA: redhat
- Red Hat / Red Hat Hardened Images (podman): Version range not reported. Source: CNA: redhat
- Red Hat / Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 (podman): Version range not reported. Source: CNA: redhat

## Severity and prioritization

- CVSS 3.1: 6.5 (medium); CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H; source: CNA: redhat

- CISA KEV: No listing in collected sources

- EPSS: Not available

- SSVC: exploitation none; automatable no; technical impact partial; source ADP: CISA-ADP

- Weaknesses: CWE-807

## Exploit evidence

No exploit evidence in collected sources. This is not proof of no exploitation.

## References

- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-121885 (CNA: redhat; vdb-entry, x_refsource_REDHAT)

- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2566844 (CNA: redhat; issue-tracking, x_refsource_REDHAT)

## Provenance

- CNA: redhat: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-121885; retrieved 2026-11-10; source updated 2026-11-10

Revision: 9b957eb28d491156ebba3935a820cb5fc48e4d5babcbe3620f54ed94d3923ceb

Canonical: https://y2.dev/cve/CVE-2026-121885

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