CVE-2018-20482

low
Published — · Modified —
CVSS v3
CVSS v2
VIR risk
2.5

Description

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).

Predictions

Exploit likelihood
20%
Patch ETA

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

vendor Authored 2026-05-27

Vendor advisory: debian — https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2018-20482

vendor Authored 2026-05-27

Vendor advisory: suse — https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2018-20482.html

vendor Authored 2026-05-27

Vendor advisory: arch — https://security.archlinux.org/ASA-201901-1

OS impact

OSVersionStatusFixed in
arch archfixed1.31-1
suse slesaffected
debian debianbookwormfixed1.30+dfsg-3.1
debian debianbullseyefixed1.30+dfsg-3.1
debian debianforkyfixed1.30+dfsg-3.1
debian debiansidfixed1.30+dfsg-3.1
debian debiantrixiefixed1.30+dfsg-3.1

References

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.