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MEDIUM severity

Denial of service while parsing a tar file due to lack of folders count validationGHSA-f5x3-32g6-xq36

MEDIUMFix: isaacs/node-tar@fe8cd57

GHSA-f5x3-32g6-xq36 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in node-tar. A fix is available for node-tar — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Also known asCVE-2024-28863
Published
Updated
Affected
2 pkgs
Patched
2 / 2
Exploits
None indexed
Exploitation data as of Nov 9, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Exploitation Status

Proof-of-concept exploit code exists

  • CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.

Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-f5x3-32g6-xq36.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
0.9%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs61th percentile — riskier than 61% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.15%0.57%1.00%1.43%0.6%0.9%May 26Sep 26Nov 26

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

How urgent is this, really

Where this sits among everything scored

Real-World Exposure

2 pkgs affected

How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, a proxy for how much of the ecosystem is exposed.

node-tarnpm
361downloads / week
tarnpm
117.5Mdownloads / week

Description

Description:

During some analysis today on npm's node-tar package I came across the folder creation process, Basicly if you provide node-tar with a path like this ./a/b/c/foo.txt it would create every folder and sub-folder here a, b and c until it reaches the last folder to create foo.txt, In-this case I noticed that there's no validation at all on the amount of folders being created, that said we're actually able to CPU and memory consume the system running node-tar and even crash the nodejs client within few seconds of running it using a path with too many sub-folders inside

Steps To Reproduce:

You can reproduce this issue by downloading the tar file I provided in the resources and using node-tar to extract it, you should get the same behavior as the video

Proof Of Concept:

Here's a video show-casing the exploit:

Impact

Denial of service by crashing the nodejs client when attempting to parse a tar archive, make it run out of heap memory and consuming server CPU and memory resources

Report resources

payload.txt archeive.tar.gz

Note

This report was originally reported to GitHub bug bounty program, they asked me to report it to you a month ago

Affected Packages

2 total 2 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
📦npmnode-tarall versions6.2.1npm install node-tar@6.2.1
📦npmtarall versions6.2.1npm install tar@6.2.1

Affected Products

1 product · 1 configurations
Application
tarisaacs
< 6.2.1
range

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency
  1. Detect

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

  2. Fix

    Update node-tar to 6.2.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-f5x3-32g6-xq36 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. Workarounds

    Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.

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.

Red HatModerate

Moderate impact in Red Hat products: node-tar is vulnerable to denial of service while parsing a specially crafted tar archive because it does not validate folder depth or count. A remote attacker who can cause a product to process such an archive can exhaust memory and crash the Node.js client. The CVSS 3.1 score is…

Workaround published by Red Hat
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 GHSA-f5x3-32g6-xq36 (CC BY 4.0)
ProductFixed inAdvisory
OpenShift-Pipelines-1.16-RHEL-8openshift-pipelines/pipelines-chains-controller-rhel8:v1.16.0-6RHEA-2024:7870
Red Hat Developer Hub 1.2 on RHEL 9rhdh/rhdh-hub-rhel9:1.2-132RHBA-2024:4924
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8nodejs:20-8100020240808073736.489197e6RHSA-2024:5814
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8nodejs:18-8100020240807161023.489197e6RHSA-2024:6148
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9nodejs:18-9040020240807131341.rhel9RHSA-2024:6147
Red Hat Migration Toolkit for Containers 1.8rhmtc/openshift-migration-ui-rhel8:v1.8.4-10RHSA-2024:7164
RHODF-4.16-RHEL-9odf4/mcg-core-rhel9:v4.16.0-60RHSA-2024:4591
RHODF-4.16-RHEL-9odf4/ocs-client-console-rhel9:v4.16.2-2RHSA-2024:6755

Frequently Asked Questions

## Description: During some analysis today on npm's `node-tar` package I came across the folder creation process, Basicly if you provide node-tar with a path like this `./a/b/c/foo.txt` it would create every folder and sub-folder here a, b and c until it reaches the last folder to create `foo.txt`, In-this case I noticed that there's no validation at all on the amount of folders being created, that said we're actually able to CPU and memory consume the system running node-tar and even crash the nodejs client within few seconds of running it using a path with too many sub-folders inside ## St
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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