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Vulnerability record · CVE-2026-23953 · published 22 January 2026

CVE-2026-23953: Linuxcontainers incus vulnerability

Linuxcontainers · Incus

Incus is a system container and virtual machine manager. In versions 6.20.0 and below, a user with the ability to launch a container with a custom YAML configuration (e.g a member of the ‘incus’ group) can create an environment variable containing newlines, which can be used to add additional configuration items in the container’s lxc.conf due to newline injection. This can allow adding arbitrary lifecycle hooks, ultimately resulting in arbitrary command execution on the host. Exploiting this issue on IncusOS requires a slight modification of the payload to change to a different writable directory for the validation step (e.g /tmp). This can be confirmed with a second container with /tmp mounted from the host (A privileged action for validation only). A fix is planned for versions 6.0.6 and 6.21.0, but they have not been released at the time of publication.

8.7 CVSS 3.1 High EPSS 0.50% · top 59.8% CWE-93 · CWE-93
8.7CVSS 3.1 base score
0.50%EPSS exploitation probability, 30 days
NoNot in CISA KEV
1Affected product versions listed by NVD
4References, 2 tagged exploit
17 Jun 2026Last modified by NVD

Description

Incus is a system container and virtual machine manager. In versions 6.20.0 and below, a user with the ability to launch a container with a custom YAML configuration (e.g a member of the ‘incus’ group) can create an environment variable containing newlines, which can be used to add additional configuration items in the container’s lxc.conf due to newline injection. This can allow adding arbitrary lifecycle hooks, ultimately resulting in arbitrary command execution on the host. Exploiting this issue on IncusOS requires a slight modification of the payload to change to a different writable directory for the validation step (e.g /tmp). This can be confirmed with a second container with /tmp mounted from the host (A privileged action for validation only). A fix is planned for versions 6.0.6 and 6.21.0, but they have not been released at the time of publication.

CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N

Affected products

1 vulnerable configurations from NVD's CPE data, grouped by vendor and product.

References

LinkTags
https://github.com/lxc/incus/blob/HEAD/internal/server/instance/drivers/driver_lxc.go#L1081 Product
https://github.com/lxc/incus/security/advisories/GHSA-x6jc-phwx-hp32 ExploitVendor Advisory
https://github.com/user-attachments/files/24473682/environment_newline_injection.sh Exploit
https://github.com/user-attachments/files/24473685/environment_newline_injection.patch Patch

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Related vulnerabilities

Same products first, then exploited flaws of the same weakness class.

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Source: NIST National Vulnerability Database (record CVE-2026-23953), CISA KEV, FIRST EPSS (scores of 2026-09-28). This page is refreshed as NVD updates the record.