CVE-2026-53495

CVE-2026-53495 is a medium-severity uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability in github.com/containerd/containerd/v2 (go), affecting versions < 2.0.12. It is fixed in 2.0.12, 1.7.35, 2.2.8, 2.3.5.

Does this CVE actually affect you?

Kodem shows which CVEs are reachable and running in your applications, so you fix what's exploitable, not just what's listed.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Runtime intelligence, not another scanner.

Summary

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

Workarounds

Ensure exec probes and lifecycle hooks do not launch long-lived background child processes.

Credits

The containerd project would like to thank XlabAI Team of Tencent Xuanwu Lab ([email protected]), including Guannan Wang, Zhanpeng Liu, Jiashuo Liang, and Guancheng Li, and @IamwhatIamSY who independently discovered and responsibly disclosed this issue in accordance with the containerd security policy.

For more information

If there are any questions or comments about this advisory:

To report a security issue in containerd:

Impact

A bug in containerd's CRI ExecSync implementation allows exec probes and lifecycle hooks with background child processes to keep containerd's stdio-drain goroutines indefinitely blocked. Because the I/O drain phase lacks a default timeout or context cancellation handling, repeated ExecSync invocations (like probes) that include long-lived background processes against a container can cause containerd to leak goroutines and host memory. Over time, this resource exhaustion can cause the containerd daemon to be terminated by the OOM killer, rendering containerd unavailable until it is restarted. This issue affects containerd on Linux systems running with the CRI plugin enabled. Users not using containerd's CRI implementation or not running containers on Linux are not affected.

Crafted input forces the application to consume excessive CPU, memory, or other resources, degrading or denying service. Typical impact: denial of service.

Affected versions

github.com/containerd/containerd/v2 (< 2.0.12) github.com/containerd/containerd (< 1.7.35) github.com/containerd/containerd/v2 (>= 2.2.0, < 2.2.8) github.com/containerd/containerd/v2 (>= 2.3.0, < 2.3.5)

Security releases

github.com/containerd/containerd/v2 → 2.0.12 (go) github.com/containerd/containerd → 1.7.35 (go) github.com/containerd/containerd/v2 → 2.2.8 (go) github.com/containerd/containerd/v2 → 2.3.5 (go)

Kodem intelligence

Severity tells you how bad this could be in the worst case. It does not tell you whether you are exposed. Exploitability and impact are functions of runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A vulnerable package can sit in your dependency tree and never run.

Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter. Kodem's runtime-powered SCA identifies whether this CVE is reachable in your applications.

Already deployed Kodem?

See it in your environmentNew to Kodem? Get a demo →

Remediation advice

This bug has been fixed in containerd 2.3.5, 2.2.8, 2.0.12, and 1.7.35. Users should update to these versions to resolve the issue.

Frequently Asked Questions

  1. What is CVE-2026-53495? CVE-2026-53495 is a medium-severity uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability in github.com/containerd/containerd/v2 (go), affecting versions < 2.0.12. It is fixed in 2.0.12, 1.7.35, 2.2.8, 2.3.5. Crafted input forces the application to consume excessive CPU, memory, or other resources, degrading or denying service.
  2. Which packages are affected by CVE-2026-53495?
    • github.com/containerd/containerd/v2 (go) (versions < 2.0.12)
    • github.com/containerd/containerd (go) (versions < 1.7.35)
  3. Is there a fix for CVE-2026-53495? Yes. CVE-2026-53495 is fixed in 2.0.12, 1.7.35, 2.2.8, 2.3.5. Upgrade to this version or later.
  4. Is CVE-2026-53495 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2026-53495 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
  5. What actually determines whether CVE-2026-53495 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
  6. How do I fix CVE-2026-53495?
    • Upgrade github.com/containerd/containerd/v2 to 2.0.12 or later
    • Upgrade github.com/containerd/containerd to 1.7.35 or later
    • Upgrade github.com/containerd/containerd/v2 to 2.2.8 or later
    • Upgrade github.com/containerd/containerd/v2 to 2.3.5 or later

Stop the waste.
Protect your environment with Kodem.

Get a personalized demo
Get a personalized demo