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moby/sys/user EUVDEUVD-2026-95094

| CVE-2026-61801 MEDIUM
Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400)
2026-10-08 https://github.com/moby/sys GHSA-mjcv-p78q-w5fw
5.5
CVSS 3.1 · Vendor: https://github.com/moby/sys
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Attack ChainAIDerived

Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain

  1. Access
    Supply malicious container image or group file
  2. Exploit
    Runtime invokes moby/sys/user parser
  3. Execution
    Unbounded entry parsing allocates memory
  4. Impact
    OOM kills process (DoS)

Vulnerability Assessment

Weakness
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A06:2025 - Insecure Design
ASVS 5.0
V2 - Validation and Business Logic Resource consumption limits
MITRE ATT&CK

1 technique across 1 tactic: Impact

The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up.

Exploitation Conditions

Exploitation requires that the application or runtime uses github.com/moby/sys/user (≤ v0.4.0) to parse a /etc/passwd- or /etc/group-style file whose contents are attacker-influenced - for example, user/group database files packaged inside an untrusted container image processed by containerd/runc, or any service that parses user-supplied user/group files. The crafted file must contain enough entries or oversized numeric UID/GID values to exhaust process memory. Limiting factors: PR:L means the attacker needs some authenticated/privileged ability to introduce the malicious file or image; if the application only ever parses trusted, system-controlled /etc/passwd files, it is effectively not exploitable. No user interaction is needed once the file is submitted for parsing, and impact is confined to availability (process OOM termination) of the parsing process.

Impact

This is a moderate-severity, resource-exhaustion DoS (CWE-400) rather than a high-priority remote-code-execution threat. The provided CVSS 3.1 vector (AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H, base 5.5) correctly reflects a local attack vector with low privileges required and availability-only impact - no confidentiality or integrity loss. No EPSS score, no CISA KEV listing, and no public POC were provided in the intelligence, so by the precision rules this is 'no public exploit identified at time of analysis.' The key nuance is the realistic exploitation path: although AV:L implies local file processing, the related containerd advisory (CVE-2026-47262 / GHSA-jpcc-p29g-p8mq) shows the untrusted files can arrive via container image content, effectively lowering the bar for an attacker who can get a malicious image pulled and processed. Net assessment: a genuine but bounded hardening/patch-management item - worth prioritizing wherever this library parses attacker-influenced user/group databases (container runtimes), but not an emergency given availability-only impact and absence of active-exploitation signals. Note the SSVC framework data (exploitation status, automatable, technical impact) was not supplied, so that dimension cannot be assessed.

Exploit ScenarioDerived

An attacker crafts a malicious container image whose /etc/passwd or /etc/group file contains an enormous number of entries (or oversized UID/GID values). When a runtime or application built on github.com/moby/sys/user ≤ v0.4.0 parses that file to resolve a user/group, the unbounded parsing consumes excessive memory and the host process is killed by the OOM killer. No public exploit code was identified, but the containerd advisory documents the container-image path as a practical trigger; AV:L/AC:L means the attack is technically simple once the attacker can influence the parsed file.

This Month Plan within 30 days. Why: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9).
Patch available 0.1% exploitation probability (EPSS)

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AnalysisAIv1 – Oct 08, 2026

Unbounded parsing of user and group database files in github.com/moby/sys/user (versions ≤ v0.4.0) allows a local, authenticated attacker who can influence the contents of an /etc/passwd- or /etc/group-style file to exhaust process memory and terminate it via Out Of Memory conditions. The defect is a CWE-400 uncontrolled resource consumption issue scored CVSS 5.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H), with impact confined to availability - no confidentiality or integrity loss is assessed. The most practical exploitation path documented is containerd/runc processing untrusted container image content (related to containerd CVE-2026-47262 / GHSA-jpcc-p29g-p8mq), though any application that hands attacker-influenced user/group files to the library is exposed. No public exploit code has been identified at time of analysis, and the issue is not confirmed actively exploited (CISA KEV); a vendor fix and an upstream patch commit are available.

RemediationAI

Upgrade github.com/moby/sys/user to v0.4.1 or later - the vendor-released patch that fixes this issue (Go module range: vulnerable <= 0.4.0, fixed in 0.4.1); the corresponding upstream change is PR 221 (https://github.com/moby/sys/pull/221), landed in commits 85a71bbe1faa36c552a960e6a5f3d0cfb632fbbe and 210d32ba2bcb4544ee968c7f31249fe59796e60b, and Docker/Moby-based consumers should additionally track the containerd advisory GHSA-jpcc-p29g-p8mq and the project advisory GHSA-mjcv-p78q-w5fw for coordinated dependency bumps. If an immediate upgrade is not possible, the vendor-recommended workaround is to avoid parsing attacker-controlled /etc/passwd- or /etc/group-style files with affected versions, and for applications that must process untrusted user or group databases, to validate and cap accepted input (entry-count limits, maximum line length, and rejection of oversized UID/GID values) before handing it to the library. As a compensating control at the deployment layer, restrict which lower-privileged users, CI jobs, or image-build pipelines can submit container images or user/group files into the parsing path - since PR:L means the attacker needs some authenticated ability to introduce the malicious input - and consider enforcing container memory limits and OOM-aware restart policies so that a successful local denial of service is contained to the single parsing process rather than degrading the host; both workarounds carry trade-offs, as input validation shifts parsing semantics onto the caller and memory limits may cause legitimate workloads to be killed under pressure.

Affected VersionsENISA

sys < 0.4.1

Affected Packages

go github.com/moby/sys/user fix: 0.4.1
euvd sys fix: 0.4.1

Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)

Affects your stack

Affects 2 packages in go, euvd

Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.

Technical ContextAI · show details

The vulnerability lives in the Go module github.com/moby/sys/user, a low-level helper library used by container runtimes (notably containerd and runc, and transitively Docker tooling) to resolve user/group specifications against passwd- and group-style files. The root cause class is CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption): prior to v0.4.1 the library's parsers - including GetExecUser, GetExecUserPath and GetAdditionalGroups - did not enforce sufficient bounds on parsed entries or on numeric UID/GID values, so a crafted file could drive excessive allocation and OOM the parsing process. The upstream fix (PR 221, commits 85a71bbe1faa36c552a960e6a5f3d0cfb632fbbe and 210d32ba2bcb4544ee968c7f31249fe59796e60b) introduces a parseNumeric helper that rejects values outside the minID-maxID range with ErrRange, and constrains UID/GID handling to at most MaxInt32 rather than the Linux kernel's MaxUint32-2 ceiling, an alignment note explicitly cross-referenced to the equivalent containerd hardening commit. Numeric group arguments that are not present in /etc/group are still accepted, but only within the enforced range, and group-name matching is now performed against pre-parsed bounds-checked arguments. Because this is a library vulnerability, exposure depends entirely on how a consuming application uses it: the CPE entry pkg:go/github.com_moby_sys_user identifies the module itself, while real-world reachability comes through the containerd path described in GHSA-jpcc-p29g-p8mq.

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  • Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources

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Severity by source

Vendor (https://github.com/moby/sys) PRIMARY 5.5 MEDIUM
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
vuln.today AI 5.5 MEDIUM

Parsing of a locally-present attacker-influenced file gives AV:L and AC:L; the attacker needs low-privilege ability to supply the file/image (PR:L); impact is availability-only OOM (A:H, C/I:N).

3.1 AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
4.0 AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Red Hat 5.5 MEDIUM

Primary rating from Vendor (https://github.com/moby/sys).

CVSS VectorVendor: https://github.com/moby/sys

Attack Vector
Local
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

DescriptionCVE.org

A denial-of-service (DoS) vulnerability exists in github.com/moby/sys/user before v0.4.1 when parsing specially crafted user or group database files. An attacker able to supply a malicious /etc/passwd or /etc/group-style file may cause excessive memory consumption, potentially resulting in process termination due to Out Of Memory (OOM) conditions.

This issue is related to containerd [CVE-2026-47262] / GHSA-jpcc-p29g-p8mq, which describes one practical exploitation path through processing untrusted container image content. Applications using github.com/moby/sys/user to parse untrusted user or group database files may be similarly affected.

Impact

github.com/moby/sys/user versions before v0.4.1 do not place sufficient limits on entries while parsing user and group database files. A specially crafted file may cause excessive memory consumption, potentially leading to process termination due to Out Of Memory (OOM) conditions.

Applications that use github.com/moby/sys/user to parse user-supplied or otherwise untrusted /etc/passwd or /etc/group files may be affected. The severity depends on whether an attacker can influence the contents of files being parsed.

Patches

This issue is fixed in github.com/moby/sys/user v0.4.1. Users should upgrade to v0.4.1 or later.

Workarounds

Avoid parsing attacker-controlled /etc/passwd or /etc/group-style files with affected versions of github.com/moby/sys/user.

Applications that must process untrusted user or group database files should validate and limit accepted input before parsing. Upgrading to v0.4.1 or later is the recommended remediation.

References

  • containerd CVE-2026-47262 / GHSA-jpcc-p29g-p8mq: https://github.com/containerd/containerd/security/advisories/GHSA-jpcc-p29g-p8mq
  • Fix in github.com/moby/sys/user: https://github.com/moby/sys/user/commit/210d32ba2bcb4544ee968c7f31249fe59796e60b

Threat Intelligence Overview

EPSS Score
0.1%
Top 99% exploitable
Prevalence
High
foundational Go library embedded in containerd, Docker and runc runtimes
Threat Intel
1
1 sources
Data Quality
6 sources
Confidence: High
EUVD NVD CVE.org EPSS Vulnrichment GHSA MSRC Vendor 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.

SignalValue
Severity MEDIUM
CISA KEV No
Public POC No
EPSS 0.1%
Patch available Yes
Active threat No
Deciding rule
MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9)
What every action level means
Emergency Immediate action required. Criteria: CRITICAL + in CISA KEV (actively exploited) without patch, OR CRITICAL + EPSS > 30% without patch, OR CRITICAL + active threat signals without patch.
Act Now Prioritize within 24-48h. Criteria: in KEV with patch available, OR CRITICAL + public POC, OR HIGH + EPSS > 10%, OR CRITICAL + active threat, OR any CRITICAL severity.
This Week Schedule remediation this week. Criteria: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9). Patch within normal change window.
This Month Plan within 30 days. Criteria: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9), lower exploitation probability. Include in regular patch cycle.
Monitor Track and reassess. Criteria: LOW severity (CVSS 0.1-3.9), minimal exploitation risk. No immediate action needed.

SSVC AssessmentENISA

SSVC Decision· derived
Defer
Exploitation
None
System Exposure· derived
Small
Automatable
No
Human Impact· derived
Medium
Technical Impact
Partial

Priority Score

28
Low Medium High Critical
KEV: 0
EPSS: 0
CVSS: +28
PoC: 0
Weaponized: 0
Threat intel: 0
Gov advisory: 0

Attack Technique

Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.

Vendor StatusVendor

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