CVE-2020-24264
📋 TL;DR
CVE-2020-24264 is an access control vulnerability in Portainer that allows authenticated users to bypass bind mount restrictions and execute arbitrary code on the Docker host. This affects Portainer 1.24.1 and earlier versions. Attackers can leverage this to escape container isolation and gain full control of the underlying host system.
💻 Affected Systems
- Portainer
📦 What is this software?
Portainer by Portainer
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Complete compromise of the Docker host machine, allowing attackers to execute arbitrary code, access all containers and data, and potentially pivot to other systems in the network.
Likely Case
Privilege escalation from container user to host root, leading to data theft, service disruption, and lateral movement within the environment.
If Mitigated
Limited impact if proper network segmentation, least privilege access, and monitoring are in place, though the vulnerability still provides significant attack surface.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires authenticated access to Portainer. The vulnerability is well-documented in public repositories and has been actively exploited.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: Portainer 1.24.2 and later
Vendor Advisory: https://github.com/portainer/portainer/issues/4106
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Backup your Portainer configuration. 2. Stop the Portainer container. 3. Pull the latest Portainer image: docker pull portainer/portainer:latest. 4. Remove the old container: docker rm portainer. 5. Recreate the container with updated image using your previous configuration. 6. Verify the version is 1.24.2 or higher.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Disable Bind Mount Creation
linuxRestrict users from creating containers with bind mounts through Portainer policies or Docker daemon configuration
docker run -d -p 9000:9000 -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock portainer/portainer --no-auth --admin-password='$2y$05$...' --bind=:9000 --templates https://raw.githubusercontent.com/portainer/templates/master/templates.json --no-analytics --no-telemetry
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Restrict Portainer access to trusted users only using network segmentation and strong authentication
- Implement strict monitoring for container creation events and bind mount usage in Docker logs
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check Portainer version in the web interface or via docker inspect on the Portainer containerCheck Version:
docker exec portainer portainer --versionVerify Fix Applied:
Verify Portainer version is 1.24.2 or higher and test that bind mount restrictions are properly enforced server-side📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unusual container creation events with bind mounts
- Portainer authentication logs showing suspicious user activity
- Docker daemon logs showing unexpected privileged container creation
Network Indicators:
- Unexpected outbound connections from Portainer host
- Suspicious API calls to Docker socket from Portainer
SIEM Query:
source="docker" AND "bind" AND "mount" AND container_name="portainer"