---
id: CVE-2026-17113
title: >-
  A flaw was found in CRI-O's container-creation environment-variable handling

  (`mergeEnvs` in `server/utils.go`, consumed by
  `setupContainerEnvironmentAndWorkdir` in

  `server/container_create.go`)
summary: >-
  A flaw was found in CRI-O's container-creation environment-variable handling

  (`mergeEnvs` in `server/utils.go`, consumed by
  `setupContainerEnvironmentAndWorkdir` in

  `server/container_create.go`). When a `CreateContainer` request supplies…
severity: medium
cvss: 6
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H'
cwe:
  - CWE-1287
published: '2026-08-24'
updated: '2026-10-12'
sourceUpdated: '2026-10-12T15:10:00.207'
source: NVD
sourceUrl: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-17113'
references:
  - url: 'https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-17113'
    label: secalert@redhat.com
  - url: 'https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2506872'
    label: secalert@redhat.com
tags:
  - nvd
epss: 0.00107
epssPercentile: 0.01084
ingestedAt: '2026-10-12T15:55:08.134Z'
---

## Overview

A flaw was found in CRI-O's container-creation environment-variable handling
(`mergeEnvs` in `server/utils.go`, consumed by `setupContainerEnvironmentAndWorkdir` in
`server/container_create.go`). When a `CreateContainer` request supplies a `nil` CRI
`Envs` field, CRI-O falls back to using the target OCI image's `config.Env` entries
unfiltered, in contrast to the normal merge path, which validates each entry for a
`key=value` form before use. An OCI image whose `config.Env` contains an entry with no
`=` character (e.g. a bare `NOEQUALS` string) causes CRI-O to split that entry into a
single-element slice and then index its second element, which is out of range. This
triggers an unrecovered Go runtime panic in the `crio` daemon process, crashing it and
terminating the container-runtime service for all workloads on the node until it is
restarted.

## Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.