CVE-2026-16254
Description
A flaw was found in claircore's apk package scanner. Malformed package-database data in a container layer can cause an out-of-bounds access that panics the scanner. If that panic is not recovered, the Clair indexer process can crash, leading to a denial of service.
Statement
Red Hat Quay deployments, Clair typically runs as multiple OpenShift pods (default >=2, auto-restart). An unrecovered indexer panic terminates one Clair pod; remaining replicas and kubelet restart limit impact to a temporary interruption of vulnerability indexing, not a lasting Quay registry outage. Therefore Availability is Low (A:L).
Mitigation
Limit image push/indexing to trusted sources until a fix is available. Where possible, run indexing so a single scanner failure cannot disrupt shared indexing capacity.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 4.3 | N/A | 4.3 |
| Attack Vector | Network | N/A | Network |
| Attack Complexity | Low | N/A | Low |
| Privileges Required | Low | N/A | Low |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | None |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | None | N/A | None |
| Integrity Impact | None | N/A | None |
| Availability Impact | Low | N/A | Low |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Read Memory
An attacker could get secret values such as cryptographic keys, PII, memory addresses, or other information that could be used in additional attacks.
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism
Out-of-bounds memory could contain memory addresses or other information that can be used to bypass ASLR and other protection mechanisms in order to improve the reliability of exploiting a separate weakness for code execution.
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
An attacker could cause a segmentation fault or crash by causing memory to be read outside of the bounds of the buffer. This is especially likely when the code reads a variable amount of data and assumes that a sentinel exists to stop the read operation, such as a NUL in a string.
Other
Technical Impact: Varies by Context
The read operation could produce other undefined or unexpected results.
Acknowledgements
Red Hat would like to thank Arpit Jain for reporting this issue.
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