CVE-2026-53941

Name of the Vulnerable Software and Affected Versions Inspektor Gadget (affected versions not specified)

Description An unprivileged container can cause a denial of service (DoS) on the entire container runtime by placing a crafted /etc/ld.so.cache file in its filesystem. When Inspektor Gadget attaches uprobe-based gadgets, it parses this file to resolve library paths. A malicious cache file can trigger high CPU and memory consumption due to three primary issues: quadratic string building in the readStringFromBytes() function, insufficient validation of the EntryCount field, and an integer overflow during format detection in pkg/uprobetracer/ldcache parser.go.

Because Inspektor Gadget uses fanotify hooks to pause container startup until the uprobe attachment is complete, the resulting CPU burn (approximately 53 seconds) blocks Docker from starting any other containers on the same host. This effect can be amplified by starting multiple containers with crafted caches simultaneously. No special privileges are required to exploit this, as the file can be included in the image or modified at runtime.

Recommendations At the moment, there is no information about a newer version that contains a fix for this vulnerability.