CVE-2026-42496 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.1) CWE-59 vulnerability. A fix is available — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Archive::Tar versions before 3.08 for Perl extract symlinks with attacker controlled targets outside the extraction directory
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-42496.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-42496 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 380,526 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
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.
Affected Products
\archive\Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Fix
Upgrade the affected component to the fixed release for CVE-2026-42496, or apply your distribution's backported patch — distro builds are often patched at an older version number, so check your vendor's advisory rather than the upstream version alone.
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.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
This is an Important vulnerability in `perl-Archive-Tar` that allows for arbitrary file access due to a path traversal flaw when extracting specially crafted tar archives. An attacker could exploit this by creating a malicious archive containing symlinks that point outside the intended extraction directory,…
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2026-42496 (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | perl-Archive-Tar-0:3.02-512.el10_2.1 | RHSA-2026:30857 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | perl:5.32-8100020260616084412.651ee29f | RHSA-2026:30851 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | perl-Archive-Tar-0:2.30-2.el8_10 | RHSA-2026:30852 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | perl-Archive-Tar-0:2.38-6.el9_8.1 | RHSA-2026:30856 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-42496 in your dependencies?
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