Headline
GHSA-65gg-3w2w-hr4h: Podman Improper Certificate Validation; machine missing TLS verification
Impact
The podman machine init command fails to verify the TLS certificate when downloading the VM images from an OCI registry (which it does by default since 5.0.0) allowing a possible Man In The Middle attack.
Patches
https://github.com/containers/podman/commit/726b506acc8a00d99f1a3a1357ecf619a1f798c3 Fixed in v5.5.2
Workarounds
Download the disk image manually via some other tool that verifies the TLS connection. Then pass the local image as file path (podman machine init --image ./somepath)
Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.