Unpatched extfs vulnerabilities are exploitable through suid-mode Apptainer

Exploitation

No confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next marks exploitation only from CISA KEV.

CVSS

7.0 · CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS

• CVE-2023-30549: 0.37% estimated exploitation activity in the next 30 days; percentile 30.80 (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-03). This is a model estimate, not proof of exploitation or customer exposure.

As published by the source; long descriptions are shortened.

Impact There is an ext4 use-after-free flaw described in CVE-2022-1184 that is exploitable through versions of Apptainer < 1.1.0 and installations that include apptainer-suid < 1.1.8 on older operating systems where that CVE has not been patched. That includes Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, Debian 10 buster (unless the linux-5.10 package is installed), Ubuntu 18.04 bionic and Ubuntu 20.04 focal. Use-after-free flaws in the kernel can be used to attack the kernel for denial of service and potentially for privilege escalation. Background Historically there have been many CVEs published for extfs and a smaller number for squashfs, including serious use-after-free and buffer overrun vulnerabilities, that are scored as "Moderate" or "Low" impact only because unprivileged users were assumed to not have write access to the raw data. Because of those ratings, vendors treat such CVEs as low urgency and either delay a patch until their next major release or never patch older but still supported…

Published by the source

25 Apr 2023, 19:48 UTC

Last modified by the source

27 Nov 2023, 22:48 UTC

Source last checked

26 Oct 2026, 15:00 UTC

1. Revision 1 · created · 26 Oct 2026

   Published from ghsa record GHSA-j4rf-7357-f4cg

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# Patch Next advisory brief: CVE-2023-30549

Advisory: Unpatched extfs vulnerabilities are exploitable through suid-mode Apptainer
IDs: CVE-2023-30549, GHSA-j4rf-7357-f4cg
Record: https://patchnext.com/advisories/cve-2023-30549 (revision 1, source checked 26 Oct 2026, 15:00 UTC)
Inventory: none attached. This brief comes from a public page and does not say whether any deployment is affected.
Severity: High (CVSS 7.0)
Exploitation: no confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next confirms exploitation only from CISA KEV.
Vendor response: Vendor fix available; fixed versions by package: github.com/apptainer/apptainer 1.1.8. A vendor fix does not mean a deployment is fixed.

## Affected components
- Go github.com/apptainer/apptainer: affected < 1.1.8; fixed in 1.1.8

## Suggested inspection (read-only)
- Go github.com/apptainer/apptainer: check the installed version with your package manager.

## Supported action
Upgrade each affected component to a fixed version on its release line. For a transitive dependency, upgrade the parent package or add an override or constraint, then regenerate the lockfile. Redeploy every environment that ran an affected version.

## Required regression checks
- Run the test suite and a production build.
- Exercise the features that depend on github.com/apptainer/apptainer.
- Repeat the inspection and confirm that only fixed versions remain installed.

## Rollback considerations
- Keep the previous lockfile and deployment artifact. Rolling back reinstates the vulnerable version, so apply any documented mitigation while you fix forward.

## Unresolved questions
- Which deployments run an affected version?
- Exploitation status can change. Check again before lowering the priority.
- Mark the work resolved only after the fixed version is verified in production.

## Sources
- Verified: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-j4rf-7357-f4cg (GitHub-reviewed advisory GHSA-j4rf-7357-f4cg lists affected ranges: Go github.com/apptainer/apptainer >=0 <1.1.8)

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