diff --git a/pkg/util/fs_util.go b/pkg/util/fs_util.go
index fa84107be..d1136d7bc 100644
--- a/pkg/util/fs_util.go
+++ b/pkg/util/fs_util.go
@@ -40,6 +40,9 @@ var whitelist = []string{
 	// which leads to a special mount on the /var/run/docker.sock file itself, but the directory to exist
 	// in the image with no way to tell if it came from the base image or not.
 	"/var/run",
+	// similarly, we whitelist /etc/mtab, since there is no way to know if the file was mounted or came
+	// from the base image
+	"/etc/mtab",
 }
 var volumeWhitelist = []string{}
 
@@ -194,7 +197,6 @@ func extractFile(dest string, hdr *tar.Header, tr io.Reader) error {
 			return err
 		}
 		currFile.Close()
-
 	case tar.TypeDir:
 		logrus.Debugf("creating dir %s", path)
 		if err := os.MkdirAll(path, mode); err != nil {
diff --git a/pkg/util/fs_util_test.go b/pkg/util/fs_util_test.go
index b00773229..99202e1bb 100644
--- a/pkg/util/fs_util_test.go
+++ b/pkg/util/fs_util_test.go
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ func Test_fileSystemWhitelist(t *testing.T) {
 	}
 
 	actualWhitelist, err := fileSystemWhitelist(path)
-	expectedWhitelist := []string{"/kaniko", "/proc", "/dev", "/dev/pts", "/sys", "/var/run"}
+	expectedWhitelist := []string{"/kaniko", "/proc", "/dev", "/dev/pts", "/sys", "/var/run", "/etc/mtab"}
 	sort.Strings(actualWhitelist)
 	sort.Strings(expectedWhitelist)
 	testutil.CheckErrorAndDeepEqual(t, false, err, expectedWhitelist, actualWhitelist)