CVE-2026-44885 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.5) Path Traversal vulnerability in github.com/portainer/portainer. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2026-44885 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Portainer: Path traversal in backup archive extraction allows arbitrary file write
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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-2026-44885.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-44885 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 0 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
github.com/portainer/portainerReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Portainer Community Edition is a lightweight service delivery platform for containerized applications that can be used to manage Docker, Swarm, Kubernetes and ACI environments. From 2.33.0 to before 2.33.8, Portainer's backup restore feature accepts a .tar.gz archive and extracts it to a target directory on the server. The extraction function (ExtractTarGz in api/archive/targz.go) constructed output paths using filepath.Clean(filepath.Join(outputDirPath, header.Name)). This combination does not prevent directory traversal — a tar entry named ../../etc/cron.d/evil resolves to a path outside the extraction root, so a crafted archive can write files to arbitrary locations on the server filesystem. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.33.8.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/portainer/portainer | ≥ 2.33.0&&< 2.33.8 | 2.33.8 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/portainer/portainer. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update github.com/portainer/portainer to 2.33.8 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-44885 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2026-44885 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2026-44885. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-44885 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2026-44885 across Go dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.