Vulnerabilities / CVE-2020-15229

critical

CVE-2020-15229

Path traversal and files overwrite with unsquashfs in singularity

Published Modified CWE 22
In the Trivy database since at least 24 Oct 2026, 07:11 UTCWhen it arrived before that build is not recorded.

Severity by source

NVD9.3CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N
GHSA8.2CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:N

Trivy's own label is CRITICAL. Rated critical by NVD. Rated lower by GHSA (high).

Description

Singularity (an open source container platform) from version 3.1.1 through 3.6.3 has a vulnerability. Due to insecure handling of path traversal and the lack of path sanitization within `unsquashfs`, it is possible to overwrite/create any files on the host filesystem during the extraction with a crafted squashfs filesystem. The extraction occurs automatically for unprivileged (either installation or with `allow setuid = no`) run of Singularity when a user attempt to run an image which is a local SIF image or a single file containing a squashfs filesystem and is coming from remote sources `library://` or `shub://`. Image build is also impacted in a more serious way as it can be used by a root user, allowing an attacker to overwrite/create files leading to a system compromise, so far bootstrap methods `library`, `shub` and `localimage` are triggering the squashfs extraction. This issue is addressed in Singularity 3.6.4. All users are advised to upgrade to 3.6.4 especially if they use Singularity mainly for building image as root user. There is no solid workaround except to temporary avoid to use unprivileged mode with single file images in favor of sandbox images instead. Regarding image build, temporary avoid to build from `library` and `shub` sources and as much as possible use `--fakeroot` or a VM for that.

Affected packages and fixed versions

SourcePackageFixed in
alpine 3.19singularity3.6.4-r0
alpine 3.20singularity3.6.4-r0
alpine 3.21singularity3.6.4-r0
alpine 3.22singularity3.6.4-r0
alpine 3.23singularity3.6.4-r0
alpine 3.24singularity3.6.4-r0
alpine edgesingularity3.6.4-r0
go::GitHub Security Advisory Gogithub.com/sylabs/singularity3.6.4

References

Vulnerability data compiled from the Trivy vulnerability database (trivy-db, Aqua Security, Apache License 2.0), which aggregates third-party advisories. CVE records are published by The MITRE Corporation under the CVE Terms of Use; CVE is a trademark of MITRE. This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Severity, titles and advisory data from the GitHub Advisory Database (CC BY 4.0), Red Hat security data (CC BY 4.0) and the other sources linked on each entry. Entries may be summarised or re-formatted; the linked original is the authoritative record.