GHSA-2J9V-P4XJ-CJW2

Vulnerability from github – Published: 2026-08-14 19:24 – Updated: 2026-08-14 19:24
VLAI
Summary
Lima: An arbitrary user in a QEMU VM could gain the root privilege in the VM via the guest agent socket
Details

Impact

On an instance of Lima running with qemu driver, an arbitrary user in the VM could access /run/lima-guestagent.sock when the guest agent is enabled.

This could result in running an arbitrary command with the root privileges in the VM (not on the host), as lima-guestagent.sock provides the tunneling service for an arbitrary address, including a Unix socket address for privileged daemons like D-Bus.

This vulnerability is not exploitable on vz driver, as the guest agent uses vsocks instead of Unix sockets.

Patches

Patched in Lima v2.1.3 (8a45892378d22f40505c31a38f786a07701b6d50)

[!NOTE] The default user account in the VM can still run an arbitrary command as the root via the guest agent socket. This is not a vulnerability, as the user can already run an arbitrary command with sudo by design.

Workarounds

  • On macOS hosts, use vz driver instead of qemu (limactl create --vm-type=vz. Default since v1.0.)
  • Or, disable the guest agent (limactl create --plain)
Severity
8.2 (High)
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Show details on source website
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{
  "affected": [
    {
      "database_specific": {
        "last_known_affected_version_range": "\u003c= 2.1.2"
      },
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Go",
        "name": "github.com/lima-vm/lima/v2"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "2.1.3"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "aliases": [
    "CVE-2026-53657"
  ],
  "database_specific": {
    "cwe_ids": [
      "CWE-276",
      "CWE-668"
    ],
    "github_reviewed": true,
    "github_reviewed_at": "2026-08-14T19:24:33Z",
    "nvd_published_at": "2026-07-10T17:16:57Z",
    "severity": "HIGH"
  },
  "details": "### Impact\nOn an instance of Lima running with `qemu` driver, an arbitrary user in the VM could access `/run/lima-guestagent.sock` when the guest agent is enabled.\n\nThis could result in running an arbitrary command with the root privileges in the VM (**not on the host**), as `lima-guestagent.sock` provides the tunneling service for an arbitrary address, including a Unix socket address for privileged daemons like D-Bus.\n\nThis vulnerability is not exploitable on `vz` driver, as the guest agent uses vsocks instead of Unix sockets.\n\n### Patches\nPatched in Lima v2.1.3 (8a45892378d22f40505c31a38f786a07701b6d50)\n\n\u003e [!NOTE]\n\u003e The default user account in the VM can still run an arbitrary command as the root via the guest agent socket.\n\u003e This is not a vulnerability, as the user can already run an arbitrary command with `sudo` by design.\n\n### Workarounds\n- On macOS hosts, use `vz` driver instead of `qemu` (`limactl create --vm-type=vz`. Default since v1.0.)\n- Or, disable the guest agent (`limactl create --plain`)",
  "id": "GHSA-2j9v-p4xj-cjw2",
  "modified": "2026-08-14T19:24:33Z",
  "published": "2026-08-14T19:24:33Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/security/advisories/GHSA-2j9v-p4xj-cjw2"
    },
    {
      "type": "ADVISORY",
      "url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-53657"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/commit/8a45892378d22f40505c31a38f786a07701b6d50"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/commit/b08cae8a670cf916d5da11c48a6de76dabd89678"
    },
    {
      "type": "PACKAGE",
      "url": "https://github.com/lima-vm/lima"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/releases/tag/v2.1.3"
    }
  ],
  "schema_version": "1.4.0",
  "severity": [
    {
      "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H",
      "type": "CVSS_V3"
    }
  ],
  "summary": "Lima: An arbitrary user in a QEMU VM could gain the root privilege in the VM via the guest agent socket"
}



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