Vulnerability in bootc Affects Red Hat Container Security Protocol
CVE-2026-16487

8.1HIGH

Key Information:

Vendor

Red Hat
Status
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
Red Hat Hardened Images
Vendor
CVE Published:
19 October 2026

What is CVE-2026-16487?

A security flaw in the bootc utility poses a significant risk when operating under the default containers signature policy. This vulnerability allows automatic or manual upgrades of mutable image tags to potentially apply unsigned content when the registry setting defaults to insecureAcceptAnything. An attacker with the ability to update a mutable image tag can execute arbitrary operating system commands with root privileges on the host upon reboot. It is crucial for users to review and update their policies to mitigate this security concern.

References

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-16487
vdb-entryx_refsource_REDHAT
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2503686
issue-trackingx_refsource_REDHAT

CVSS V3.1

Score:
8.1
Severity:
HIGH
Confidentiality:
High
Integrity:
High
Availability:
High
Attack Vector:
Network
Attack Complexity:
High
Privileges Required:
None
User Interaction:
None
Scope:
Unchanged

Timeline

  • Vulnerability published

  • Vulnerability Reserved

Credit

Red Hat would like to thank Christopher Lusk (North Echo Security Research) for reporting this issue.
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