GHSA-2j9v-p4xj-cjw2
Lima: An arbitrary user in a QEMU VM could gain the root privilege in the VM via the guest agent socket
Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Go | github.com/lima-vm/lima/v2 | < 2.1.3 | 2.1.3 |
Details
As written in the advisory (Markdown source, shown as plain text).
### Impact
On an instance of Lima running with `qemu` driver, an arbitrary user in the VM could access `/run/lima-guestagent.sock` when the guest agent is enabled.
This could result in running an arbitrary command with the root privileges in the VM (**not on the host**), as `lima-guestagent.sock` provides the tunneling service for an arbitrary address, including a Unix socket address for privileged daemons like D-Bus.
This vulnerability is not exploitable on `vz` driver, as the guest agent uses vsocks instead of Unix sockets.
### Patches
Patched in Lima v2.1.3 (8a45892378d22f40505c31a38f786a07701b6d50)
> [!NOTE]
> The default user account in the VM can still run an arbitrary command as the root via the guest agent socket.
> This is not a vulnerability, as the user can already run an arbitrary command with `sudo` by design.
### Workarounds
- On macOS hosts, use `vz` driver instead of `qemu` (`limactl create --vm-type=vz`. Default since v1.0.)
- Or, disable the guest agent (`limactl create --plain`)
References
External links from the advisory. They lead to third-party sites.
- https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/security/advisories/GHSA-2j9v-p4xj-cjw2
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-53657
- https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/commit/8a45892378d22f40505c31a38f786a07701b6d50
- https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/commit/b08cae8a670cf916d5da11c48a6de76dabd89678
- https://github.com/lima-vm/lima
- https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/releases/tag/v2.1.3