Podman is a tool for managing OCI containers and pods. Versions 4.8.0 through 5.8.1 contain a command injection vulnerability in the HyperV machine backend in pkg/machine/hyperv/stubber.go, where the VM image path is inserted into a PowerShell double-quoted string without sanitization, allowing $() subexpression injection. Because PowerShell evaluates subexpressions inside double-quoted strings before executing the outer command, an attacker who can control the VM image path through a crafted machine name or image directory can execute arbitrary PowerShell commands with the privileges of the Podman process. On typical Windows installations this means SYSTEM-level code execution, and only Windows is affected as the code is exclusive to the HyperV backend. This issue has been patched in version 5.8.2.

Affected: Go: github.com/containers/podman/v4, Go: github.com/containers/podman/v5

## Summary

A command injection vulnerability exists in Podman's HyperV machine backend. The VM image path is inserted into a PowerShell double-quoted string without sanitization, allowing `$()` subexpression injection.

## Affected Code

**File**: `pkg/machine/hyperv/stubber.go:647`

```go resize := exec.Command("powershell", []string{ "-command", fmt.Sprintf("Resize-VHD \"%s\" %d", imagePath.GetPath(), newSize.ToBytes()), }...) ```

## Root Cause

PowerShell evaluates `$()` subexpressions inside double-quoted strings before executing the outer command. The `fmt.Sprintf` call places the user-controlled image path directly into double quotes without escaping or sanitization.

## Impact

An attacker who can control the VM image path (through a crafted machine name or image directory) can execute arbitrary PowerShell commands with the privileges of the Podman process on the Windows host. On typical Windows installations, this means SYSTEM-level code execution.

## Patch

https://github.com/containers/podman/commit/571c842bd357ee626019ea97d030fb772fc654ed

The affected code is only used on Windows, all other operating systems are not affected by this and can thus ignore the CVE patch.

## Credit

We like to thank Sang-Hoon Choi (@KoreaSecurity) for reporting this issue to us.

podman-5.8.2-1.1 on GA media

podman: Podman kube play command may overwrite host files podman: github.com/containers/podman: Podman: Arbitrary code execution via command injection in HyperV backend

Affected: Ubuntu:25.10: podman, Ubuntu:26.04:LTS: podman

Podman is a tool for managing OCI containers and pods. Versions 4.8.0 through 5.8.1 contain a command injection vulnerability in the HyperV machine backend in pkg/machine/hyperv/stubber.go, where the VM image path is inserted into a PowerShell double-quoted string without sanitization, allowing $() subexpression injection. Because PowerShell evaluates subexpressions inside double-quoted strings before executing the outer command, an attacker who can control the VM image path through a crafted machine name or image directory can execute arbitrary PowerShell commands with the privileges of the Podman process. On typical Windows installations this means SYSTEM-level code execution, and only Windows is affected as the code is exclusive to the HyperV backend. This issue has been patched in version 5.8.2.

Ein lokaler Angreifer kann eine Schwachstelle in Podman HyperV Machine ausnutzen, um beliebigen Programmcode mit Administratorrechten auszuführen.