Withdrawn: this CVE is not a vulnerability
The assigning CNA withdrew CVE-2026-16487 on 21 October 2026, and it carries the Rejected state at CVE.org and NVD. It must not be treated as a live finding. Its pre-withdrawal severity, score and exploitability are withheld below; the record itself is kept because withdrawals are reversible and because the reject reason is the correction worth publishing.
CVE-2026-16487
Bootc: containers-common: bootc: automatic updates can apply unsigned mutable-tag content under default containers policy
Description
Rejected reason: Red Hat Product Security has determined that this is not a vulnerability in bootc or containers-common. bootc fetches images under /etc/containers/policy.json. The shipped default is insecureAcceptAnything for registries without an explicit signature requirement; registry.redhat.io and registry.access.redhat.com require signatures. Updating a mutable tag requires the ability to publish to the reference an administrator has already configured the host to follow. Requiring signatures is available through that policy and through bootc enforce-container-sigpolicy, which is off by default. Persistence of /var across bootc rollback is expected image-mode behavior.
INFO
Published Date :
Oct. 19, 2026, 6:17 a.m.
Last Modified :
Oct. 21, 2026, 7:17 a.m.
Remotely Exploit :
—
Source :
[email protected]
Affected Products
The following products are affected by CVE-2026-16487
vulnerability.
Even if cvefeed.io is aware of the exact versions of the
products
that
are
affected, the information is not represented in the table below.
CVSS Scores
| Score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability Score | Impact Score | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVSS 3.1 | HIGH | 53f830b8-0a3f-465b-8143-3b8a9948e749 | ||||
| CVSS 3.1 | HIGH | MITRE-CVE | ||||
| CVSS 3.1 | HIGH | [email protected] |
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CVE-2026-16487 vulnerability anywhere in the article.
The following table lists the changes that have been made to the
CVE-2026-16487 vulnerability over time.
Vulnerability history details can be useful for understanding the evolution of a vulnerability, and for identifying the most recent changes that may impact the vulnerability's severity, exploitability, or other characteristics.
-
CVE Rejected by [email protected]
Oct. 21, 2026
Action Type Old Value New Value -
CVE Modified by [email protected]
Oct. 21, 2026
Action Type Old Value New Value Changed Description A flaw was found in bootc when operating with the default containers signature policy. Automatic or manual upgrades of a mutable image tag may apply unsigned content for registries that fall through to insecureAcceptAnything, allowing an attacker who can update that tag to execute arbitrary OS content as the host root filesystem on reboot. Rejected reason: Red Hat Product Security has determined that this is not a vulnerability in bootc or containers-common. bootc fetches images under /etc/containers/policy.json. The shipped default is insecureAcceptAnything for registries without an explicit signature requirement; registry.redhat.io and registry.access.redhat.com require signatures. Updating a mutable tag requires the ability to publish to the reference an administrator has already configured the host to follow. Requiring signatures is available through that policy and through bootc enforce-container-sigpolicy, which is off by default. Persistence of /var across bootc rollback is expected image-mode behavior. Removed CVSS V3.1 Red Hat, Inc.: AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Removed CWE Red Hat, Inc.: CWE-345 Removed CWE nvd-ai-agent-0.4.0-gemma-4-31B-it: NVD-CWE-noinfo Added Affected Affected value removed. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/16xxx/CVE-2026-16487.json">CVE-2026-16487</a> Removed Reference Red Hat, Inc.: https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-16487 Removed Reference Red Hat, Inc.: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2503686 Removed Reference nvd-ai-agent-0.4.0-gemma-4-31B-it: https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-16487 Removed Reference nvd-ai-agent-0.4.0-gemma-4-31B-it: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2503686 -
CVE Modified by [email protected]
Oct. 21, 2026
Action Type Old Value New Value Added Affected Affected value modified. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/16xxx/CVE-2026-16487.json">CVE-2026-16487</a> -
New CVE Received by [email protected]
Oct. 19, 2026
Action Type Old Value New Value Added Description A flaw was found in bootc when operating with the default containers signature policy. Automatic or manual upgrades of a mutable image tag may apply unsigned content for registries that fall through to insecureAcceptAnything, allowing an attacker who can update that tag to execute arbitrary OS content as the host root filesystem on reboot. Added CVSS V3.1 AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Added CWE CWE-345 Added Affected New affected value received. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/16xxx/CVE-2026-16487.json">CVE-2026-16487</a> Added Reference https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-16487 Added Reference https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2503686