Vulnerability Intelligence Report
Podman: Malformed Image can trick podman run into leaking host environment variables into the container
CVE-2026-57231
Podman is a tool for managing OCI containers and pods. From 1.8.1 until 5.8.4, a container image that contains a environment variable with just a key and no value can trick podman into passing that variable from the host into the container. This is made worse by the fact that using an asterisk (*) will cause podman to pass all host variables into the container. So essentially a malicious image can exfiltrate all podman environment variables that are set in the session from where the container is launched. This vulnerability is fixed in 5.8.4 and 6.0.0.
No Active Exploit Signals
CVSS Base Score
7.5
HIGH
Exploitability:3.9
Impact Score:3.6
Executive Threat Verdict
Evaluating...
Evaluating Threat Landscape...
Assessing known weaponization, exploitation telemetry, and federal advisories.
Attack Surface
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Authentication
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Weaponization
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SSVC Action
—
Weaknesses (CWE)
Affected Products & Versions
| Vendor | Product | Affected Versions |
|---|---|---|
| podman-container-tools | podman | >= 1.8.1, < 5.8.4 (affected) |
References & Technical Advisories
No reference links found.
Threat Intelligence Signals
GitHub Advisory
Identity & Timeline
| Status | PUBLISHED |
| Assigning Authority | GitHub, Inc. · Vendor · USA |
| Reserved | 2026-06-24T02:21:33 |
| Published | 2026-06-26T16:29:02 |
| Last Updated | 2026-06-27T02:41:58 |
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