Apple pulls container 1.4.0 over a symlink escape bug

Apple retired the 1.4.0 tag for its container tool and replaced it with 1.4.1, rolling in fixes for two security advisories, per the 1.4.1 release notes.

The bigger one, GHSA-4587-w9mm-xxvh, sits in how the tool loads OCI images. When it read oci-layout and index.json, it followed symlinks without checking where they pointed. An image built with a symlink pointing outside the extraction directory could write files anywhere on the host the process had access to. Anyone pulling an image from a registry they don't fully control was exposed, no execution required, just the pull.

The second advisory, GHSA-rgqp-277h-gcwj, is narrower but still a memory-safety bug. UnixType.init(path:) checked path length against macOS's longer limit. That limit was longer than the actual sockaddr_un.sun_path buffer it copies into, so a long-enough path could overflow it.

The notes don't say how long the symlink bug existed before 1.4.0. They also don't say whether it affects earlier tagged versions. What they do say is that 1.4.1 carries every fix back through 1.3.1.

Pulling a whole tag instead of shipping a patch release is the tell here. Apple retracted a version number instead of just bumping one. That usually means the fix changes extraction behavior enough that leaving 1.4.0 available was worse than the confusion of skipping it. If you're on container, confirm you're actually running 1.4.1. A tag pull doesn't reach machines that already downloaded the 1.4.0 binary or a cached image.