CVE-2016-9962 Information Exposure in RunC

Medium 6.4 Published 31 Jan 2017 Updated 6 Aug 2024

Attackers can exploit a race condition in runc exec to escape containers or modify runtime state by ptracing processes during initialization.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: An administrator
Attackable: Local or same network only
Victim action needed: Not needed
Fix: Available

What is CVE-2016-9962?

CVE-2016-9962 is a medium-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 31 Jan 2017. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

RunC allowed additional container processes via 'runc exec' to be ptraced by the pid 1 of the container. This allows the main processes of the container, if running as root, to gain access to file-descriptors of these new processes during the initialization and can lead to container escapes or modification of runC state before the process is fully placed inside the container.

Weakness: CWE-362

Which versions are affected by CVE-2016-9962?

3 open source packages ship an affected version, including github.com/opencontainers/runc. It affects 1 product.

Package	Affected	Fixed in
`github.com/opencontainers/runc` Go	All versions	`1.0.0-rc3`
`github.com/opencontainers/runc` Go	All versions	`1.0.0-rc3`
`github.com/opencontainers/runc` Go	All versions	`1.0.0-rc3`

Linux distribution packages (20)

`container-selinux` Red Hat:rhel_extras_other:7	All versions	`2:1.12.5-14.el7`
`docker` Red Hat:rhel_extras_other:7	All versions	`2:1.12.5-14.el7`
`docker-client` Red Hat:rhel_extras_other:7	All versions	`2:1.12.5-14.el7`
`docker-client-latest` Red Hat:rhel_extras_other:7	All versions	`0:1.12.5-14.el7`
`docker-common` Red Hat:rhel_extras_other:7	All versions	`2:1.12.5-14.el7`
`docker-latest` Red Hat:rhel_extras_other:7	All versions	`0:1.12.5-14.el7`
`docker-latest-logrotate` Red Hat:rhel_extras_other:7	All versions	`0:1.12.5-14.el7`
`docker-latest-v1.10-migrator` Red Hat:rhel_extras_other:7	All versions	`0:1.12.5-14.el7`
`docker-logrotate` Red Hat:rhel_extras_other:7	All versions	`2:1.12.5-14.el7`
`docker-lvm-plugin` Red Hat:rhel_extras_other:7	All versions	`2:1.12.5-14.el7`
`docker-novolume-plugin` Red Hat:rhel_extras_other:7	All versions	`2:1.12.5-14.el7`
`docker-rhel-push-plugin` Red Hat:rhel_extras_other:7	All versions	`2:1.12.5-14.el7`
`docker-v1.10-migrator` Red Hat:rhel_extras_other:7	All versions	`2:1.12.5-14.el7`
`runc` Red Hat:rhel_extras_other:7	All versions	`0:1.0.0-1.rc2.el7`
`containerd` SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Containers 12	All versions	`0.2.5+gitr569_2a5e70c-15.3`
`docker` SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Containers 12	All versions	`1.12.6-87.2`
`runc` SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Containers 12	All versions	`0.1.1+gitr2819_50a19c6-15.2`
`containerd` SUSE:OpenStack Cloud 6	All versions	`0.2.5+gitr569_2a5e70c-15.3`
`docker` SUSE:OpenStack Cloud 6	All versions	`1.12.6-87.2`
`runc` SUSE:OpenStack Cloud 6	All versions	`0.1.1+gitr2819_50a19c6-15.2`

Products include Docker Docker.

How do I fix CVE-2016-9962?

Upgrade github.com/opencontainers/runc to 1.0.0-rc3 or later.

Is CVE-2016-9962 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2016-9962 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Sources

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2016-9962, GHSA-gp4j-w3vj-7299, GO-2022-0835, MGASA-2017-0189, RHSA-2017:0116, RHSA-2017:0123 and 3 more.