CVE-2026-33055

tar-rs incorrectly ignores PAX size headers if header size is nonzero

Published Mar 20, 2026 CVSS 4.0 · 5.1 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
tar-rs is a tar archive reading/writing library for Rust. Versions 0.4.44 and below have conditional logic that skips the PAX size header in cases where the base header size is nonzero. As part of CVE-2025-62518, the astral-tokio-tar project was changed to correctly honor PAX size headers in the case where it was different from the base header. This is almost the inverse of the astral-tokio-tar issue. Any discrepancy in how tar parsers honor file size can be used to create archives that appear differently when unpacked by different archivers. In this case, the tar-rs (Rust tar) crate is an outlier in checking for the header size - other tar parsers (including e.g. Go archive/tar) unconditionally use the PAX size override. This can affect anything that uses the tar crate to parse archives and expects to have a consistent view with other parsers. This issue has been fixed in version 0.4.45.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-gchp-q4r4-x4ff tar-rs incorrectly ignores PAX size headers if header size is nonzero
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
CPEs cpe:2.3:a:alexcrichton:tar-rs:*:*:*:*:*:rust:*:*
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 8.1, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Alexcrichton
Alexcrichton tar-rs
Vendors & Products Alexcrichton
Alexcrichton tar-rs
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'yes', 'Exploitation': 'poc', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description tar-rs is a tar archive reading/writing library for Rust. Versions 0.4.44 and below have conditional logic that skips the PAX size header in cases where the base header size is nonzero. As part of CVE-2025-62518, the astral-tokio-tar project was changed to correctly honor PAX size headers in the case where it was different from the base header. This is almost the inverse of the astral-tokio-tar issue. Any discrepancy in how tar parsers honor file size can be used to create archives that appear differently when unpacked by different archivers. In this case, the tar-rs (Rust tar) crate is an outlier in checking for the header size - other tar parsers (including e.g. Go archive/tar) unconditionally use the PAX size override. This can affect anything that uses the tar crate to parse archives and expects to have a consistent view with other parsers. This issue has been fixed in version 0.4.45.
Title tar-rs incorrectly ignores PAX size headers if header size is nonzero
Weaknesses CWE-843
References
Metrics cvssV4_0

{'score': 5.1, 'vector': 'CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:L/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
GitHub_M
Published
Updated
Mar 20, 2026, 3:44 PM
Reserved
Mar 17, 2026, 6:10 PM
Status
Analyzed
Published
Mar 20, 2026, 7:16 AM
Modified
Jun 17, 2026, 10:36 AM