diff --git a/.github/workflows/basic-ci-amd64.yaml b/.github/workflows/basic-ci-amd64.yaml
index 0842fba223..9d155f5043 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/basic-ci-amd64.yaml
+++ b/.github/workflows/basic-ci-amd64.yaml
@@ -63,15 +63,13 @@ jobs:
       # all the tests due to a single flaky instance.
       fail-fast: false
       matrix:
-        containerd_version: ['latest']
+        containerd_version: ['active']
         vmm: ['dragonball', 'cloud-hypervisor', 'qemu-runtime-rs']
     runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
     env:
       CONTAINERD_VERSION: ${{ matrix.containerd_version }}
       GOPATH: ${{ github.workspace }}
       KATA_HYPERVISOR: ${{ matrix.vmm }}
-      #the latest containerd from 2.0 need to set the CGROUP_DRIVER for e2e testing
-      CGROUP_DRIVER: ""
       SANDBOXER: "shim"
     steps:
       - uses: actions/checkout@v4
diff --git a/tests/integration/cri-containerd/integration-tests.sh b/tests/integration/cri-containerd/integration-tests.sh
index 09aced4e24..23e43e76dc 100755
--- a/tests/integration/cri-containerd/integration-tests.sh
+++ b/tests/integration/cri-containerd/integration-tests.sh
@@ -20,6 +20,9 @@ export PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/sbin"
 # golang is installed in /usr/local/go/bin/ add that path
 export PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin"
 
+#the latest containerd from 2.0 need to set the CGROUP_DRIVER for e2e testing
+export CGROUP_DRIVER=""
+
 # Runtime to be used for testing
 KATA_HYPERVISOR="${KATA_HYPERVISOR:-qemu}"
 RUNTIME=${RUNTIME:-containerd-shim-kata-${KATA_HYPERVISOR}-v2}
diff --git a/versions.yaml b/versions.yaml
index 105ad2894d..0bc12a4177 100644
--- a/versions.yaml
+++ b/versions.yaml
@@ -261,10 +261,11 @@ externals:
     # containerd from v1.5.0 used the path unix socket
     # instead of abstract socket, thus kata wouldn's support the containerd's
     # version older than them.
-    version: "v1.6.8"
-    lts: "v1.6"
-    active: "v1.7"
-    # add containerd 2.0.0 for sandbox api test
+    version: "v1.7.25"
+    lts: "v1.7"
+    active: "v2.0"
+    # keep the latest version to make the current PR ci work, once it was
+    # merged,we can remove the latest version.
     latest: "v2.0"
 
   critools: