Contrast vulnerability allows arbitrary host data Injection into container VOLUME mount points
Date: 2025-07
Affected: go/github.com/edgelesssys/contrast
Attack vector: other
Category: vulnerability-disclosure
Severity: Low
CWE: CWE-552
CWE-693
CVSS: 3.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N)

### Background The [`VOLUME`](https://docs.docker.com/reference/dockerfile/#volume) directive in Dockerfiles, or the [`config.volumes`](https://github.com/opencontainers/image-spec/blob/06e6b47e2ef69021d9f9bf2cfa5fe43a7e010c81/config.md?plain=1#L168-L170) field in OCI image descriptors, indicates filesystem paths "where the process is likely to write data". While these paths have special semantics in Docker, they are only hints in the OCI spec and are not treated specially by Kubernetes. However, containered implements the [specified conversion logic](https://github.com/opencontainers/image-spec/blob/06e6b47e2ef69021d9f9bf2cfa5fe43a7e010c81/conversion.md?plain=1#L100-L105) and adds a mount point if there is none set by Kubernetes. Unfortunately, the specification leaves it open whether the mount point is populated with any and what data, so the runtime needs to be able to push arbitrary data to the Kata agent. However, this is almost always not what the user wants: 1. A declared `VOLUME` location is usually important to the app's core functionality, which is usually at odds with the data in that location being untrusted. 2. `VOLUME` declarations are often used by image vendors to indicate "mount your persistence here" to the user. They are rarely useful without a real volume mounted there. ### Impact All of the following need to be true to be affected by this vulnerability: 1. A bare metal Contrast deployment (AKS is not affected). 2. An image with at least one VOLUME d


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Architectural layers (MAESTRO):