CVE-2026-53495

Description

containerd is an open-source container runtime. Prior to 1.7.35, 2.0.12, 2.2.8, and 2.3.5, containerd on Linux with the CRI plugin enabled can indefinitely block the drainExecSyncIO goroutine in internal/cri/server/container_execsync.go when CRI ExecSync is used by exec probes or lifecycle hooks that launch long-lived background child processes retaining standard input and output pipes. The input and output drain phase has no default timeout and did not stop when the request context was canceled, so repeated ExecSync invocations can accumulate blocked goroutines and host memory. The resulting resource exhaustion can cause the OOM killer to terminate containerd, leaving the container runtime unavailable until restart. Deployments not using containerd's CRI implementation and containers not running on Linux are not affected. This issue is fixed in versions 1.7.35, 2.0.12, 2.2.8, and 2.3.5.

Read the notes from the security team

Status

Show unmaintained releases

Package	Ubuntu Release	Status
containerd	26.04 LTS resolute	Needs evaluation
	24.04 LTS noble	Needs evaluation
	22.04 LTS jammy	Needs evaluation
	20.04 LTS focal	Needs evaluation
	18.04 LTS bionic	Needs evaluation
	16.04 LTS xenial	Needs evaluation
containerd-app	26.04 LTS resolute	Needs evaluation
	24.04 LTS noble	Needs evaluation
	22.04 LTS jammy	Needs evaluation
	20.04 LTS focal	Needs evaluation
containerd-stable	26.04 LTS resolute	Needs evaluation
	24.04 LTS noble	Not in release
	22.04 LTS jammy	Not in release

Notes

alexmurray

Traditionally the containerd source package contained both the library and docker application. However, in releases that contain the containerd-app source package, the containerd source package contains only the library whilst the docker application itself is contained in the containerd-app package.

mdeslaur

containerd-app gets new upstream versions, containerd-stable gets backported security updates and minor point updates

Severity score breakdown

CVSS version: CVSS v4.0

Base score 6.8 · Medium

Base metrics

Parameter	Value
Attack vector	Local
Attack complexity	Low
Attack requirements	None
Privileges required	Low
User interaction	None
Vulnerable system - Confidentiality impact	None
Vulnerable system - Integrity impact	None
Vulnerable system - Availability impact	High
Subsequent system - Confidentiality impact	None
Subsequent system - Integrity impact	None
Subsequent system - Availability impact	None

Scores

Parameter	Value
Base score	6.8 · Medium
Base + Threat score	-
Base + Environmental score	-
Base + Threat + Environmental score	-

Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

References

Other references

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-53495