CVE-2020-12265 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Path Traversal vulnerability in decompress. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for decompress — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Path Traversal in decompress
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2020-12265 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 384,189 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
decompressnpmDescription
Versions of decompress prior to 4.2.1 are vulnerable to Arbitrary File Write. The package fails to prevent extraction of files with relative paths, allowing attackers to write to any folder in the system by including filenames containing../.
Recommendation
Upgrade to version 4.2.1 or later.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | decompress | all versions | 4.2.1npm install decompress@4.2.1 |
Affected Products
decompressdecompress_projectResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for decompress, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update decompress to 4.2.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-12265 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Resolve every user-supplied path to its canonical form and reject anything that escapes the intended directory, and run the component under an account that has no read or write access outside the directory it legitimately serves.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-12265 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.