Description
A server-side request forgery (SSRF) flaw was found in KubeVirt's virt-api port-forward handler. When processing a port-forward request to a VirtualMachineInstance (VMI), virt-api reads the target IP from vmi.Status.Interfaces[0].IP and passes it directly to net.Dial() without validation. For VMIs using non-masquerade network bindings (bridge or secondary-only), this IP is reported by the QEMU guest agent running inside the VM and is fully controllable by the VM owner. An attacker with kubevirt.io:edit permissions can create a VM with a modified guest agent that reports an arbitrary IP address, then request port-forward to establish a bidirectional TCP tunnel from virt-api's cluster-internal network position to any routable destination, bypassing NetworkPolicy isolation.
Problem types
Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF)
Product status
Timeline
| 2026-06-25: | Reported to Red Hat. |
| 2026-06-25: | Made public. |
Credits
This issue was discovered by Huzaifa Sidhpurwala (Red Hat).
References
access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-13318
bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2492659 (RHBZ#2492659)