Red Hat CRI-O /etc/passwd Home injection

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability categorized as problematic has been discovered in Red Hat CRI-O. The impacted element is an unknown function of the file /etc/passwd. The manipulation of the argument Home results in injection. This vulnerability is cataloged as CVE-2026-15809. The attack may be launched remotely. There is no exploit available.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as problematic, was found in Red Hat CRI-O (affected version unknown). Affected is an unknown functionality of the file /etc/passwd. The manipulation of the argument HOME with an unknown input leads to a injection vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-74. The product constructs all or part of a command, data structure, or record using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify how it is parsed or interpreted when it is sent to a downstream component. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

A flaw was found in CRI-O. The fix for a previous vulnerability (CVE-2022-4318) was incorrect, allowing it to be bypassed. An attacker capable of setting environment variables on a container can inject a newline character into the HOME environment variable. This issue allows the addition of arbitrary lines into /etc/passwd by use of a specially crafted environment variable.

The advisory is available at access.redhat.com. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2026-15809 since 07/15/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. It is possible to launch the attack remotely. Additional levels of successful authentication are needed for exploitation. Technical details are known, but there is no available exploit. The structure of the vulnerability defines a possible price range of USD $5k-$25k at the moment (estimation calculated on 07/15/2026). This vulnerability is assigned to T1055 by the MITRE ATT&CK project.

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

Vendor

• Red Hat

Name

• CRI-O

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.redhat.com/

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