CVE-2026-5704

Tar: tar: hidden file injection via crafted archives

A flaw was found in tar. A remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability by crafting a malicious archive, leading to hidden file injection with fully attacker-controlled content. This bypasses pre-extraction inspection mechanisms, potentially allowing an attacker to introduce malicious files onto a system without detection.

CVSS 3.1 · 5 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Gnu Redhat

Products

Tar Discovery Enterprise Linux and 4 more

CVE-2026-18508

Tar: tar: --one-top-level hardlink targets not confined to top-level directory enabling arbitrary file overwrite

A flaw was found in GNU tar. When extracting an archive with the --one-top-level option, hardlink targets are not confined to the designated top-level directory and may resolve relative to the extraction working directory. A crafted archive can create hardlinks that escape the intended boundary and, when combined with a preexisting symbolic link under the working directory, may allow writing outside that boundary during a single extraction.

CVSS 3.1 · 4.4 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Gnu Redhat

Products

Tar Discovery Enterprise Linux and 6 more

CVE-2026-18477

Tar: tar: toctou in incremental dumpdir 'x' rename handling allows restore path escape

A TOCTOU (Time-of-Check Time-of-Use) vulnerability in GNU tar's incremental dumpdir 'X' rename handling allows a local attacker with write access to a directory being backed up to influence the restore process if the attacker has access to the system where the restore is being performed. During restoration, files or directories may be created, renamed or overwritten outside the intended extraction directory. This could lead to unauthorized file modification or, in some cases, privilege escalation. Exploitation does not require the attacker to modify or craft the archive, and standard backup and restore workflows—including extracting into a newly created directory without using the -P option do not mitigate the issue.

CVSS 3.1 · 4.4 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Gnu Redhat

Products

Tar Discovery Enterprise Linux and 6 more

CVE-2022-48303

tar: heap buffer overflow at from_header() in list.c via specially crafted checksum

GNU Tar through 1.34 has a one-byte out-of-bounds read that results in use of uninitialized memory for a conditional jump. Exploitation to change the flow of control has not been demonstrated. The issue occurs in from_header in list.c via a V7 archive in which mtime has approximately 11 whitespace characters.

CVSS 3.1 · 5.5 Medium EPSS 1.5% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Fedoraproject Gnu Redhat

Products

Fedora Tar Enterprise Linux and 1 more

CVE-2021-20193

tar: Memory leak in read_header() in list.c

A flaw was found in the src/list.c of tar 1.33 and earlier. This flaw allows an attacker who can submit a crafted input file to tar to cause uncontrolled consumption of memory. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.

CVSS 3.1 · 3.3 Low EPSS 1.1% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Gnu

Products

Tar

CVE-2019-9923

tar: null-pointer dereference in pax_decode_header in sparse.c

pax_decode_header in sparse.c in GNU Tar before 1.32 had a NULL pointer dereference when parsing certain archives that have malformed extended headers.

CVSS 3.1 · 7.5 High EPSS 3.2% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Gnu Opensuse

Products

Tar Leap

CVE-2018-20482

tar: Infinite read loop in sparse_dump_region function in sparse.c

GNU Tar through 1.30, when --sparse is used, mishandles file shrinkage during read access, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (infinite read loop in sparse_dump_region in sparse.c) by modifying a file that is supposed to be archived by a different user's process (e.g., a system backup running as root).

CVSS 3.1 · 4.7 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Debian Gnu Opensuse

Products

Debian Linux Tar Leap

CVE-2007-4131

tar directory traversal vulnerability

Directory traversal vulnerability in the contains_dot_dot function in src/names.c in GNU tar allows user-assisted remote attackers to overwrite arbitrary files via certain //.. (slash slash dot dot) sequences in directory symlinks in a TAR archive.

CVSS 2.0 · 6.8 Medium EPSS 2.7% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Gnu Redhat Rpath

Products

Tar Enterprise Linux Enterprise Linux Desktop and 1 more

CVE-2007-4476

tar/cpio stack crashing in safer_name_suffix

Buffer overflow in the safer_name_suffix function in GNU tar has unspecified attack vectors and impact, resulting in a "crashing stack."

CVSS 2.0 · 7.5 High EPSS 14.9% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Canonical Debian Gnu and 1 more

Products

Ubuntu Linux Debian Linux Tar and 1 more

CVE-2006-6097

security flaw

GNU tar 1.16 and 1.15.1, and possibly other versions, allows user-assisted attackers to overwrite arbitrary files via a tar file that contains a GNUTYPE_NAMES record with a symbolic link, which is not properly handled by the extract_archive function in extract.c and extract_mangle function in mangle.c, a variant of CVE-2002-1216.

CVSS 2.0 · 4.0 Medium EPSS 11.7% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Gnu Redhat

Products

Tar Enterprise Linux

CVE-2001-1267

security flaw

Directory traversal vulnerability in GNU tar 1.13.19 and earlier allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files during archive extraction via a tar file whose filenames contain a .. (dot dot).

CVSS 2.0 · 2.1 Low EPSS 1.1% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Gnu Redhat

Products

Tar Enterprise Linux Linux

CVE-2002-0399

security flaw

Directory traversal vulnerability in GNU tar 1.13.19 through 1.13.25, and possibly later versions, allows attackers to overwrite arbitrary files during archive extraction via a (1) "/.." or (2) "./.." string, which removes the leading slash but leaves the "..", a variant of CVE-2001-1267.

CVSS 2.0 · 5.0 Medium EPSS 3.6% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Gnu Redhat

Products

Tar Enterprise Linux Linux

CVE-2002-1216

security flaw

GNU tar 1.13.19 and other versions before 1.13.25 allows remote attackers to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack, as the result of a modification that effectively disabled the security check.

CVSS 2.0 · 5.0 Medium EPSS 1.6% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Gnu Redhat

Products

Tar Enterprise Linux Linux

CVE-2005-1918

tar archive path traversal issue

The original patch for a GNU tar directory traversal vulnerability (CVE-2002-0399) in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 2.1 uses an "incorrect optimization" that allows user-assisted attackers to overwrite arbitrary files via a crafted tar file, probably involving "/../" sequences with a leading "/".

CVSS 2.0 · 2.6 Low EPSS 2.9% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Gnu Redhat

Products

Tar Enterprise Linux Enterprise Linux Desktop and 1 more

CVE-2005-2541

tar: does not properly warn the user when extracting setuid or setgid files

Tar 1.15.1 does not properly warn the user when extracting setuid or setgid files, which may allow local users or remote attackers to gain privileges.

CVSS 3.1 · 7.0 High EPSS 4.0% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Gnu

Products

Tar

CVE-2006-0300

security flaw

Buffer overflow in tar 1.14 through 1.15.90 allows user-assisted attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) and possibly execute code via unspecified vectors involving PAX extended headers.

CVSS 2.0 · 5.1 Medium EPSS 5.2% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Gnu Redhat

Products

Tar Enterprise Linux

CVE-2023-39804

tar: Incorrectly handled extension attributes in PAX archives can lead to a crash

In GNU tar before 1.35, mishandled extension attributes in a PAX archive can lead to an application crash in xheader.c.

CVSS 3.1 · 6.2 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Gnu

Products

Tar

CVE-2025-45582

tar: Tar path traversal

GNU Tar through 1.35 allows file overwrite via directory traversal in crafted TAR archives, with a certain two-step process. First, the victim must extract an archive that contains a ../ symlink to a critical directory. Second, the victim must extract an archive that contains a critical file, specified via a relative pathname that begins with the symlink name and ends with that critical file's name. Here, the extraction follows the symlink and overwrites the critical file. This bypasses the protection mechanism of "Member name contains '..'" that would occur for a single TAR archive that attempted to specify the critical file via a ../ approach. For example, the first archive can contain "x -> ../../../../../home/victim/.ssh" and the second archive can contain x/authorized_keys. This can affect server applications that automatically extract any number of user-supplied TAR archives, and were relying on the blocking of traversal. This can also affect software installation processes in which "tar xf" is run more than once (e.g., when installing a package can automatically install two dependencies that are set up as untrusted tarballs instead of official packages). NOTE: the official GNU Tar manual has an otherwise-empty directory for each "tar xf" in its Security Rules of Thumb; however, third-party advice leads users to run "tar xf" more than once into the same directory.

CVSS 3.1 · 4.1 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Gnu

Products

Tar

CVE-2016-6321

tar: Bypassing the extract path name

Directory traversal vulnerability in the safer_name_suffix function in GNU tar 1.14 through 1.29 might allow remote attackers to bypass an intended protection mechanism and write to arbitrary files via vectors related to improper sanitization of the file_name parameter, aka POINTYFEATHER.

CVSS 3.1 · 7.5 High EPSS 15.7% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Gnu

Products

Tar

CVE-2010-0624

cpio: Heap-based buffer overflow by expanding a specially-crafted archive

Heap-based buffer overflow in the rmt_read__ function in lib/rtapelib.c in the rmt client functionality in GNU tar before 1.23 and GNU cpio before 2.11 allows remote rmt servers to cause a denial of service (memory corruption) or possibly execute arbitrary code by sending more data than was requested, related to archive filenames that contain a : (colon) character.

CVSS 2.0 · 6.8 Medium EPSS 4.7% KEV · Not listed

Vendors

Gnu Redhat

Products

Cpio Tar Enterprise Linux