Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization 3 KubeVirt WriteToCachedFile symlink

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability categorized as critical has been discovered in Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization 3. Affected by this vulnerability is the function WriteToCachedFile of the component KubeVirt. The manipulation results in symlink. This vulnerability was named CVE-2026-13218. The attack needs to be approached locally. There is no available exploit.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, was found in Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization 3. Affected is the function WriteToCachedFile of the component KubeVirt. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a symlink vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-61. The product, when opening a file or directory, does not sufficiently account for when the file is a symbolic link that resolves to a target outside of the intended control sphere. This could allow an attacker to cause the product to operate on unauthorized files. This is going to have an impact on integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

A flaw was found in KubeVirt's virt-handler network cache handling. The WriteToCachedFile function writes data to a launcher-rooted path using os.WriteFile and os.Chown without symlink protection. A user with access to the virt-launcher container can plant a symlink at the cache file path, causing virt-handler to follow it and overwrite an arbitrary host file with JSON content and change its ownership.

The advisory is shared for download at access.redhat.com. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2026-13218 since 06/24/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. The attack needs to be approached locally. There are known technical details, but no exploit is available. The current price for an exploit might be approx. USD $5k-$25k (estimation calculated on 06/26/2026).

There is no information about possible countermeasures known. It may be suggested to replace the affected object with an alternative product.

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Productinfo

Type

• Virtualization Software

Vendor

• Red Hat

Name

• OpenShift Virtualization

Version

• 3

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.redhat.com/

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