Cybersecurity researchers have detailed a case of an incomplete patch for a beforehand addressed safety flaw impacting the NVIDIA Container Toolkit that, if efficiently exploited, may put delicate knowledge in danger.
The unique vulnerability CVE-2024-0132 (CVSS rating: 9.0) is a Time-of-Verify Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) vulnerability that might result in a container escape assault and permit for unauthorized entry to the underlying host.
Whereas this flaw was resolved by NVIDIA in September 2024, a brand new evaluation by Development Micro has revealed the repair to be incomplete and that there additionally exists a associated efficiency flaw affecting Docker on Linux that might lead to a denial-of-service (DoS) situation.
“These points may allow attackers to flee container isolation, entry delicate host sources, and trigger extreme operational disruptions,” Development Micro researcher Abdelrahman Esmail mentioned in a brand new report revealed right this moment.
The truth that the TOCTOU vulnerability persists implies that a specifically crafted container could possibly be abused to entry the host file system and execute arbitrary instructions with root privileges. The flaw impacts model 1.17.4 if the function allow-cuda-compat-libs-from-container is explicitly enabled.
“The particular flaw exists throughout the mount_files perform,” Development Micro mentioned. “The problem outcomes from the shortage of correct locking when performing operations on an object. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code within the context of the host.”
Nonetheless, for this privilege escalation to work, the attacker will need to have already obtained the flexibility to execute code inside a container.
The shortcoming has been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2025-23359 (CVSS rating: 9.0), which was beforehand flagged by cloud safety agency Wiz as additionally a bypass for CVE-2024-0132 again in February 2025. It has been addressed in model 1.17.4.
The cybersecurity firm mentioned it additionally found a efficiency challenge through the evaluation of the CVE-2024-0132 that might doubtlessly result in a DoS vulnerability on the host machine. It impacts Docker cases on Linux methods.
“When a brand new container is created with a number of mounts configured utilizing (bind-propagation=shared), a number of guardian/little one paths are established. Nonetheless, the related entries aren’t eliminated within the Linux mount desk after container termination,” Esmail mentioned.
“This results in a speedy and uncontrollable progress of the mount desk, exhausting obtainable file descriptors (fd). Finally, Docker is unable to create new containers because of fd exhaustion. This excessively giant mount desk results in an enormous efficiency challenge, stopping customers from connecting to the host (i.e., through SSH).”
To mitigate the difficulty, it is suggested to observe the Linux mount desk for irregular progress, restrict Docker API entry to licensed personnel, implement robust entry management insurance policies, and conduct periodic audits of container-to-host filesystem bindings, quantity mounts, and socket connections.
