Docker Security Update: CVE-2018-5736 and Container Security Best Practices
On Monday, February 11, Docker released an update to fix a privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2019-5736) in runC, the Open Container Initiative (OCI) runtime specification used in Docker Engine and containerd. This vulnerability makes it possible for a malicious actor that has created a specially-crafted container image to gain administrative privileges on the host. Docker engineering worked with runC maintainers on the OCI to issue a patch for this vulnerability.
Docker recommends immediately applying the update to avoid any potential security threats. For Docker Engine-Community, this means updating to 18.09.2 or 18.06.2. For Docker Engine- Enterprise, this means updating to 18.09.2, 18.03.1-ee-6, or 17.06.2-ee-19. Read the release notes before applying the update due to specific instructions for Ubuntu and RHEL operating systems.
Summary of the Docker Engine versions that address the vulnerability:
Docker Engine Community |
Docker Engine Enterprise |
18.09.2 |
18.09.2 |
18.06.2 |
18.03.1-ee-6 |
|
17.06.2-ee-19 |
To better protect the container images run by Docker Engine, here are some additional recommendations and best practices:
Use Docker Official Images
Official Images are a curated set of Docker repositories hosted on Docker Hub that are designed to: