Incus is a system container and virtual machine manager. Incus instances have an option to provide credentials to systemd in the guest. For containers, this is handled through a shared directory. Prior to version 6.23.0, an attacker can set a configuration key named something like `systemd.credential.../../../../../../root/.bashrc` to cause Incus to write outside of the `credentials` directory associated with the container. This makes use of the fact that the Incus syntax for such credentials is `systemd.credential.XYZ` where `XYZ` can itself contain more periods. While it's not possible to read any data this way, it's possible to write to arbitrary files as root, enabling both privilege escalation and denial of service attacks. Version 6.23.0 fixes the issue.

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History

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:00:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Incus is a system container and virtual machine manager. Incus instances have an option to provide credentials to systemd in the guest. For containers, this is handled through a shared directory. Prior to version 6.23.0, an attacker can set a configuration key named something like `systemd.credential.../../../../../../root/.bashrc` to cause Incus to write outside of the `credentials` directory associated with the container. This makes use of the fact that the Incus syntax for such credentials is `systemd.credential.XYZ` where `XYZ` can itself contain more periods. While it's not possible to read any data this way, it's possible to write to arbitrary files as root, enabling both privilege escalation and denial of service attacks. Version 6.23.0 fixes the issue.
Title Abitrary file write through systemd-creds option
Weaknesses CWE-22
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 10, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H'}


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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: GitHub_M

Published:

Updated: 2026-03-26T23:27:45.711Z

Reserved: 2026-03-24T19:50:52.105Z

Link: CVE-2026-33945

cve-icon Vulnrichment

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cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-03-27T00:16:23.633

Modified: 2026-03-27T00:16:23.633

Link: CVE-2026-33945

cve-icon Redhat

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cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

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Weaknesses