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Not in CISA KEV
HIGH severity

Links in archive can create arbitrary directoriesGHSA-62jx-8vmh-4mcw

HIGHFix: alexcrichton/tar-rs#259

GHSA-62jx-8vmh-4mcw is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-59 vulnerability in tar. 2 public exploit references exist, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for tar — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Also known asCVE-2021-38511RUSTSEC-2021-0080
Published
Updated
Affected
1 pkg
Patched
1 / 1
Exploits
2 known
Exploitation data as of Oct 11, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
1.4%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs72th percentile — riskier than 72% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%0.63%1.26%1.89%0.3%1.4%Apr 26Aug 26Oct 26

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

GHSA-62jx-8vmh-4mcw by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.

Where this sits among everything scored

Of 385,738 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.

Real-World Exposure

1 pkg affected
🦀tar

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

When unpacking a tarball that contains a symlink the tar crate may create directories outside of the directory it's supposed to unpack into. The function errors when it's trying to create a file, but the folders are already created at this point.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
🦀crates.iotarall versions0.4.36cargo update -p tar --precise 0.4.36

Affected Products

1 product · 1 configurations
Application
tartar_project
< 0.4.36
range
Exploits & PoCs
2

Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.

An issue was discovered in the tar crate before 0.4.36 for Rust. When sy…

raw.githubusercontent.comNVDAug 2021

An issue was discovered in the tar crate before 0.4.36 for Rust. When sy…

rustsec.orgNVDAug 2021

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for tar, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update tar to 0.4.36 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-62jx-8vmh-4mcw is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. 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.

Frequently Asked Questions

When unpacking a tarball that contains a symlink the tar crate may create directories outside of the directory it's supposed to unpack into. The function errors when it's trying to create a file, but the folders are already created at this point.
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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Links in archive can create arbitrary directories (High 7.5)