Singularity
CVE-2020-15229
CRITICAL
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A01:2025 - Broken Access Control
ASVS 5.0
V5 - File Handling Path canonicalization, traversal prevention
MITRE ATT&CK
2 techniques across 2 tactics: Discovery, Collection The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Impact | CVSS score of 9.3 (CRITICAL). Attack characteristics: network attack vector, low complexity, no privileges required, user interaction required. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A remote attacker could access files and directories outside the intended path by sending crafted requests to the affected application. No authentication is required to exploit this vulnerability. |
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Alert meAnalysisAI
Singularity (an open source container platform) from version 3.1.1 through 3.6.3 has a vulnerability. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.3), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. This Path Traversal vulnerability could allow attackers to access files and directories outside the intended path.
RemediationAI
A vendor patch is available. Apply the latest security update as soon as possible. Validate and canonicalize file paths. Use chroot or sandboxing. Reject input containing path separators or '../' sequences.
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in go
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
This vulnerability is classified as Path Traversal (CWE-22), which allows attackers to access files and directories outside the intended path. Singularity (an open source container platform) from version 3.1.1 through 3.6.3 has a vulnerability. Due to insecure handling of path traversal and the lack of path sanitization within unsquashfs, it is possible to overwrite/create any files on the host filesystem during the extraction with a crafted squashfs filesystem. The extraction occurs automatically for unprivileged (either installation or with allow setuid = no) run of Singularity when a user attempt to run an image which is a local SIF image or a single file containing a squashfs filesystem and is coming from remote sources library:// or shub://. Image build is also impacted in a more serious way as it can be used by a root user, allowing an attacker to overwrite/create files leading to a system compromise, so far bootstrap methods library, shub and localimage are triggering the squashfs extraction. This issue is addressed in Singularity 3.6.4. All users are advised to upgrade to 3.6.4 especially if they use Singularity mainly for building image as root user. There is no solid workaround except to temporary avoid to use unprivileged mode with single file images in favor of sandbox images instead. Regarding image build, temporary avoid to build from library and shub sources and as much as possible use --fakeroot or a VM for that. Affected products include: Sylabs Singularity, Opensuse Backports Sle, Opensuse Leap. Version information: version 3.1.1.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionNVD
Singularity (an open source container platform) from version 3.1.1 through 3.6.3 has a vulnerability. Due to insecure handling of path traversal and the lack of path sanitization within unsquashfs, it is possible to overwrite/create any files on the host filesystem during the extraction with a crafted squashfs filesystem. The extraction occurs automatically for unprivileged (either installation or with allow setuid = no) run of Singularity when a user attempt to run an image which is a local SIF image or a single file containing a squashfs filesystem and is coming from remote sources library:// or shub://. Image build is also impacted in a more serious way as it can be used by a root user, allowing an attacker to overwrite/create files leading to a system compromise, so far bootstrap methods library, shub and localimage are triggering the squashfs extraction. This issue is addressed in Singularity 3.6.4. All users are advised to upgrade to 3.6.4 especially if they use Singularity mainly for building image as root user. There is no solid workaround except to temporary avoid to use unprivileged mode with single file images in favor of sandbox images instead. Regarding image build, temporary avoid to build from library and shub sources and as much as possible use --fakeroot or a VM for that.
Threat Intelligence Overview
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
GitHub
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Path traversal exploits occur when applications use user-controlled input to construct file system paths without proper validation.
Affected Products (CPE)NVD
More in Singularity
View allAn issue was discovered in Singularity 3.1.0 to 3.2.0-rc2, a malicious user with local/network access to the host system
Sylabs Singularity Enterprise through 1.6.2 has Insufficient Entropy in a nonce. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), thi
Sylabs Singularity 3.5.x and 3.6.x, and SingularityPRO before 3.5-8, has an Incorrect Check of a Function's Return Value
Sylabs Singularity through 3.6.2 has Insecure Permissions on temporary directories used in explicit and implicit contain
Sylabs Singularity 3.2.0 through 3.6.2 has Insecure Permissions on temporary directories used in fakeroot or user namesp
Apptainer is an open source container platform for Linux. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low atta
Sylabs Singularity 2.4 to 2.6 allows local users to conduct Improper Input Validation attacks. Rated high severity (CVSS
Sylabs Singularity 3.0 through 3.5 lacks support for an Integrity Check. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerabil
Sylabs Singularity 3.5.0 through 3.5.3 fails to report an error in a Status Code. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this v
Sylabs Singularity 3.0 through 3.5 has Improper Validation of an Integrity Check Value. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5),
Insecure permissions (777) are set on $HOME/.singularity when it is newly created by Singularity (version from 3.3.0 to
Singularity 2.3.0 through 2.5.1 is affected by an incorrect access control on systems supporting overlay file system. Ra
Exploit-DB