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GHSA-xg9w-vg3g-6m68 — guarddog

Fix: DataDog/guarddog@9aa6a72

GHSA-xg9w-vg3g-6m68 is a Path Traversal vulnerability in guarddog. A fix is available for guarddog — see the affected versions and patch details below.

GuardDog Path Traversal Vulnerability Leads to Arbitrary File Overwrite and RCE

Also known asCVE-2026-22871PYSEC-2026-1430
Published
Jan 13, 2026
Updated
Jul 7, 2026
Affected
1 pkg
Patched
1 / 1
Exploits
None indexed
Exploitation data as of Sep 19, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Exploitation Status

No confirmed exploitation observed yet

  • A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
  • 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 GHSA-xg9w-vg3g-6m68.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
1.1%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs63th percentile — riskier than 63% of all scored CVEsHighest risk

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.

Real-World Exposure

1 pkg affected
🐍guarddog

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

Description

Summary

A path traversal vulnerability exists in GuardDog's safe_extract() function that allows malicious PyPI packages to write arbitrary files outside the intended extraction directory, leading to Arbitrary File Overwrite and Remote Code Execution on systems running GuardDog.

CWE: CWE-22 (Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory)

Details

Vulnerable Code

File: guarddog/utils/archives.py

elif zipfile.is_zipfile(source_archive):
    with zipfile.ZipFile(source_archive, "r") as zip:
        for file in zip.namelist():
            # Note: zip.extract cleans up any malicious file name
            # such as directory traversal attempts This is not the
            # case of zipfile.extractall
            zip.extract(file, path=os.path.join(target_directory, file))  # ❌ VULNERABLE

Root Cause

The comment about zip.extract() fooled me at first :) then I noticed the os.path.join() call. The vulnerability stems from incorrect usage of Python's zipfile.ZipFile.extract() API:

  • The path parameter should be the target directory, not a full file path
  • extract() automatically appends the member name to the path
  • By passing os.path.join(target_directory, file), GuardDog causes the filename to be appended twice
  • This breaks zipfile's built-in path traversal sanitization

Attack Vector

  1. Attacker creates malicious wheel with path traversal filenames
  2. Uploads to PyPI or distributes directly
  3. Package scan: guarddog pypi scan malicious-pkg
  4. GuardDog downloads and extracts the package
  5. Malicious files written to arbitrary locations
  6. Code execution could be achieved

Impact

Impact depends on how GuardDog is running and under which environment.

Critical Scenarios

  1. Immediate Code Execution

    • Write to ~/.bashrc → executes on next shell
    • Write to ~/.profile → executes on login

  2. Persistent Backdoors

    • Write to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys → SSH access
    • Write to /etc/cron.d/malicious → scheduled execution (if root)
    • Write to systemd user services → persistent execution

and more...

Credits

Reported by: Charbel (dwbruijn)

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
🐍PyPIguarddogall versions2.7.1pip install --upgrade 'guarddog==2.7.1'

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

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

  2. Fix

    Update guarddog to 2.7.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-xg9w-vg3g-6m68 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.

  4. How O3 protects you

    O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like GHSA-xg9w-vg3g-6m68 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.

Tailored to GHSA-xg9w-vg3g-6m68. 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** exists in GuardDog's `safe_extract()` function that allows malicious PyPI packages to write arbitrary files outside the intended extraction directory, leading to **Arbitrary File Overwrite** and **Remote Code Execution** on systems running GuardDog. **CWE:** CWE-22 (Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory) ## Details ### Vulnerable Code **File:** `guarddog/utils/archives.py` ```python elif zipfile.is_zipfile(source_archive): with zipfile.ZipFile(source_archive, "r") as zip: for file in zip.namelist():
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is GHSA-xg9w-vg3g-6m68 in your dependencies?

O3 Security finds GHSA-xg9w-vg3g-6m68 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.

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GHSA-xg9w-vg3g-6m68: guarddog RCE | O3 Security