CVE-2026-42496

critical

Published 2026-05-26 · Modified 2026-05-28

💬 Discuss on Community ✚ Propose mitigation

CVSS v3

9.1

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

CVSS v4 NEW

—

not yet in upstream

VIR risk

9.1

Description

Archive::Tar versions before 3.08 for Perl extract symlinks with attacker controlled targets outside the extraction directory. _make_special_file() passes the tar header's linkname to symlink() without validating it against absolute paths or .. segments. The secure-extract mode check that guards regular file extraction does not cover the symlink target. A subsequent open through the extracted name reads or writes the attacker chosen path.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood

94%

Patch ETA

—

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

No mitigations published for this CVE yet.

The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or — if you've already worked around this in production — publish your fix to the community-verified tier.

✚ Propose a mitigation on Community → Mitigations published via the community go through AI scoring + 2 human reviewers + 7-day silent objection window before landing here with source_tier=community-verified.

OS impact

OS	Version	Status
debian	bookworm	affected
debian	bullseye	affected
debian	forky	affected
debian	sid	affected
debian	trixie	affected

Application impact

Vendor	Product	Versions	Fixed
archive\	\	`{"endExcluding":"3.08"}`	`3.08`

References

CWEs

CWE-59

Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.

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