# CVE-2026-121885: Podman: untrusted image labels allow auto-update to restart arbitrary systemd units


- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 10 Nov 2026
- **Updated:** 11 Nov 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-113342, GHSA-55rm-rwr7-q2wr, GHSA-7fhf-8vg3-7vrp, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-121885

## What is CVE-2026-121885?

CVE-2026-121885 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, published on 10 Nov 2026. 

### Official description

A flaw was found in Podman. An attacker can trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) by supplying a container image containing crafted metadata labels. Podman's auto-update mechanism improperly trusts these image labels to determine which system services to restart. If a user runs the malicious container and auto-update processes it, arbitrary system services are restarted with the user's privileges, potentially allowing an attacker to shut down the host system when Podman runs with administrative privileges.

Weakness: CWE-807 (Reliance on Untrusted Inputs in a Security Decision)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-121885?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-121885?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-121885 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2026-121885 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-121885 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-121885 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-121885 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, published on 10 Nov 2026. 
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-121885 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10. 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-2026-121885/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-121885/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-121885
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-121885
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-121885

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-121885/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.