# CVE-2020-2025: Kata Containers - Cloud Hypervisor guests persist filesystem changes to the underlying host image file

> A malicious guest VM can overwrite the host image file to compromise subsequent guest VMs, allowing privilege escalation and code execution.

- **Severity:** High 8.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 19 May 2020
- **Updated:** 16 Sep 2024

## What is CVE-2020-2025?

CVE-2020-2025 is a high-severity vulnerability in Kata Containers, published on 19 May 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Kata Containers before 1.11.0 on Cloud Hypervisor persists guest filesystem changes to the underlying image file on the host. A malicious guest can overwrite the image file to gain control of all subsequent guest VMs. Since Kata Containers uses the same VM image file with all VMMs, this issue may also affect QEMU and Firecracker based guests.

Weakness: CWE-281 (Improper Preservation of Permissions), CWE-284 (Improper Access Control)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-2025?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Katacontainers Runtime.

## How do I fix CVE-2020-2025?

No fix has been published for CVE-2020-2025 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2020-2025 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-2025 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Kata Containers

- [CVE-2020-2024](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-2024/): Kata Containers - Guests can trick the kata-runtime into unmounting any mount point on the host (medium 6.5)
- [CVE-2020-2023](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-2023/): Kata Containers - Containers have access to the guest root filesystem device (low 3.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2020-2025 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2020-2025 is a high-severity vulnerability in Kata Containers, published on 19 May 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-2025 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Kata Containers. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-2025/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-2025/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-2025
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-2025
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-2025

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-2025/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.