CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2025-65105

UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following

Published: Dec 02, 2025 | Modified: Dec 05, 2025
CVSS 3.x
5.3
MEDIUM
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
CVSS 2.x
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu
MEDIUM

Apptainer is an open source container platform. In Apptainer versions less than 1.4.5, a container can disable two of the forms of the little used –security option, in particular the forms –security=apparmor: and –security=selinux: which otherwise put restrictions on operations that containers can do. The –security option has always been mentioned in Apptainer documentation as being a feature for the root user, although these forms do also work for unprivileged users on systems where the corresponding feature is enabled. Apparmor is enabled by default on Debian-based distributions and SElinux is enabled by default on RHEL-based distributions, but on SUSE it depends on the distribution version. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.4.5.

Weakness

The product, when opening a file or directory, does not sufficiently account for when the file is a symbolic link that resolves to a target outside of the intended control sphere. This could allow an attacker to cause the product to operate on unauthorized files.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Apptainer Lfprojects * 1.4.5 (excluding)

Potential Mitigations

  • Follow the principle of least privilege when assigning access rights to entities in a software system.
  • Denying access to a file can prevent an attacker from replacing that file with a link to a sensitive file. Ensure good compartmentalization in the system to provide protected areas that can be trusted.

References