CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2021-20188 — A flaw was found in podman before 1.7.0

High CVSS 7

A flaw was found in podman before 1.7.0. File permissions for non-root users running in a privileged container are not correctly checked. This flaw can be abused by a low-privileged user inside the container to access any other file in the container, even if owned by the root user inside the container. It does not allow to directly escape the container, though being a privileged container means that a lot of security features are disabled when running the container. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality and integrity as well as system availability.

Severity
High
CVSS
7 (3.1)
Published
2021-02-11
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-863

Affected products

  • podman_project / podman
  • redhat / openshift_container_platform / 3.11
  • redhat / enterprise_linux / 7.0
  • redhat / enterprise_linux / 8.0

Matched remediation archetype

Authorization bypass, IDOR, and cross-tenant access

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Check exposure

  • Map object and action authorization checks across API, UI, batch, import/export, and background-job paths.
  • Identify tenant, ownership, role, and policy boundaries for affected resources and administrative operations.
  • Use synthetic fixtures to compare intended access matrices without accessing another user's real data.

Remediate safely

  • Enforce server-side authorization at each resource access and state transition using the authenticated principal and trusted tenant context.
  • Scope data queries by tenant and ownership; treat client-supplied identifiers, roles, and policy claims as untrusted.
  • Add deny-by-default policy tests for horizontal and vertical access across every affected transport.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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