node-tar Vulnerable to Arbitrary File Overwrite and Symlink Poisoning via Insufficient Path Sanitization
Priority HIGH 69CWE-22Published · Updated
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Local
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- Active
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Attack requirements
- None
- Impact type
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- High · Low · None
- Fix status
- Partial Red Hat: 9 fixed, 15 without a fix
Attack profile from CVSS 4.0 · CNA. Fix status from CNA, GitHub and Red Hat.
Summary
node-tar is a Tar for Node.js. The node-tar library (<= 7.5.2) fails to sanitize the linkpath of Link (hardlink) and SymbolicLink entries when preservePaths is false (the default secure behavior). This allows malicious archives to bypass the extraction root restriction, leading to Arbitrary File Overwrite via hardlinks and Symlink Poisoning via absolute symlink targets. This vulnerability is fixed in 7.5.3.
Why it matters now
Exploitation Proof of concept CISA SSVC · not in CISA KEV
EPSS 0.00376 31st percentileScored 2026-11-07
Public exploit Yes 1 exploit referenceTagged by NVD
Fix Partial node-tar (isaacs): 7.5.3tar (npm): 7.5.3Red Hat: 9 advisoriesRed Hat: 9 fixed, 15 without a fix
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- Poc
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| isaacs | node-tar | before 7.5.3 | 7.5.3 | Patch available | CNA |
| — | tar (npm) | before 7.5.3 | 7.5.3 | Patch available | GHSA-8qq5-rm4j-mr97 |
- node-tar Vendorisaacs Affected before 7.5.3 Fixed in 7.5.3 Patch available CNA
- tar (npm) Vendor— Affected before 7.5.3 Fixed in 7.5.3 Patch available GHSA-8qq5-rm4j-mr97
Remediation
- Fix · CNA node-tar (isaacs) Fixed in 7.5.3
- Fix · GHSA-8qq5-rm4j-mr97 tar (npm) Fixed in 7.5.3 Advisory →
Red Hat 9 advisories
- RHSA-2026:41928 Released 2026-07-20 · Red Hat rating ImportantRed Hat Migration Toolkit for Containers
- Red Hat Migration Toolkit 1.8 registry.redhat.io/rhmtc/openshift-migration-controller-rhel8, registry.redhat.io/rhmtc/openshift-migration-hook-runner-rhel8, registry.redhat.io/rhmtc/openshift-migration-log-reader-rhel8 +6
- RHSA-2026:19712 Released 2026-05-20 · Red Hat rating CriticalRHOAI 3.3.3 - Red Hat OpenShift AI
- Red Hat OpenShift AI 3.3 registry.redhat.io/rhoai/odh-built-in-detector-rhel9, registry.redhat.io/rhoai/odh-dashboard-rhel9, registry.redhat.io/rhoai/odh-data-science-pipelines-argo-argoexec-rhel9 +33
- RHSA-2026:18868 Released 2026-05-19 · Red Hat rating Importantlinux-sgx security update
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) linux-sgx-2.26-7.el9, sgx-common-2.26-7.el9, sgx-libs-2.26-7.el9 +5
Show 6 more Red Hat advisories
- RHSA-2026:18480 Released 2026-05-19 · Red Hat rating Importantlinux-sgx security update
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 10) linux-sgx-2.26-7.el10, sgx-common-2.26-7.el10, sgx-libs-2.26-7.el10 +5
- RHSA-2026:6192 Released 2026-03-30 · Red Hat rating ImportantRed Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces 3.27.0 Release.
- Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces 3.27 registry.redhat.io/devspaces/code-rhel9, registry.redhat.io/devspaces/configbump-rhel9, registry.redhat.io/devspaces/dashboard-rhel9 +9
- RHSA-2026:3782 Released 2026-03-04 · Red Hat rating CriticalRHOAI 2.25.3 - Red Hat OpenShift AI
- Red Hat OpenShift AI 2.25 registry.redhat.io/rhoai/odh-caikit-tgis-serving-rhel9, registry.redhat.io/rhoai/odh-codeflare-operator-rhel9, registry.redhat.io/rhoai/odh-dashboard-rhel9 +27
- RHSA-2026:2926 Released 2026-02-18 · Red Hat rating ImportantRHTAS 1.2.2 - Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer Release
- Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer 1.2 registry.redhat.io/rhtas/certificate-transparency-rhel9, registry.redhat.io/rhtas/rekor-backfill-redis-rhel9, registry.redhat.io/rhtas/rekor-search-ui-rhel9 +6
- RHSA-2026:2900 Released 2026-02-18 · Red Hat rating ImportantNetwork Observability 1.11.0 for OpenShift
- Network Observability (NETOBSERV) 1.11.0 registry.redhat.io/network-observability/network-observability-cli-rhel9, registry.redhat.io/network-observability/network-observability-console-plugin-compat-rhel9, registry.redhat.io/network-observability/network-observability-console-plugin-rhel9 +2
- RHSA-2026:2144 Released 2026-02-05 · Red Hat rating ImportantRHTAS 1.3.2 - Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer Release
- Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer 1.3 registry.redhat.io/rhtas/certificate-transparency-rhel9, registry.redhat.io/rhtas/fulcio-rhel9, registry.redhat.io/rhtas/rekor-backfill-redis-rhel9 +7
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Important. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
| Product | Status | Plan or fix |
|---|---|---|
| Confidential Compute Attestation | Affected | No fix yet |
| Logging Subsystem for Red Hat OpenShift | Affected | No fix planned: Will not fix |
| OpenShift Lightspeed | Affected | No fix planned: Will not fix |
| OpenShift Pipelines | Affected | No fix planned: Will not fix |
| OpenShift Serverless | Affected | No fix yet |
| Red Hat 3scale API Management Platform 2 | Affected | No fix planned: Will not fix |
| Red Hat Connectivity Link 1 | Affected | No fix yet |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI (RHEL AI) 3 | Affected | No fix planned: Will not fix |
| Red Hat Fuse 7 | Affected | No fix planned: Will not fix |
| Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) | Affected | No fix yet |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 | Affected | No fix planned: Will not fix |
| Red Hat OpenShift GitOps | Affected | No fix planned: Will not fix |
| Red Hat Openshift Data Foundation 4 | Affected | No fix yet |
| Red Hat Satellite 6 | Affected | No fix yet |
| Network Observability (NETOBSERV) 1.11.0 | Fixed | RHSA-2026:2900 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 10) | Fixed | RHSA-2026:18480 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) | Fixed | RHSA-2026:18868 |
| Red Hat Migration Toolkit 1.8 | Fixed | RHSA-2026:41928 |
| Red Hat OpenShift AI 2.25 | Fixed | RHSA-2026:3782 |
| Red Hat OpenShift AI 3.3 | Fixed | RHSA-2026:19712 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces 3.27 | Fixed | RHSA-2026:6192 |
| Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer 1.2 | Fixed | RHSA-2026:2926 |
| Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer 1.3 | Fixed | RHSA-2026:2144 |
Not affected: 27 products
- Cryostat 4
- Multicluster Engine for Kubernetes
- Network Observability (NETOBSERV) 1.11.0
- Node HealthCheck Operator
- Red Hat AMQ Broker 7
- Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2
- Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2
- Red Hat Developer Hub 1
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
- Red Hat Hardened Images
- Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7
- Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 8
- Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Expansion Pack
- Red Hat Migration Toolkit 1.8
- Red Hat OpenShift AI 2.25
- Red Hat OpenShift AI 3.3
- Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4
- Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces 3.27
- Red Hat Process Automation 7
- Red Hat Quay 3
- Red Hat Single Sign-On 7
- Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer 1.2
- Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer 1.3
- Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-23745
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-8qq5-rm4j-mr97
- 2026-10-27 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
References
More isaacs Tar vulnerabilities
- TI-2026-42687 node-tar: Decompression/parse DoS via unlimited input CVSS 4.0CRITICAL 9.2
- TI-2026-42688 node-tar: Negative tar entry size causes infinite loop in archive replace CVSS 4.0HIGH 8.7
- TI-2026-42686 node-tar: Process crash via PAX numeric path type confusion CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
- TI-2026-24357 node-tar Symlink Path Traversal via Drive-Relative Linkpath CVSS 4.0HIGH 8.2
- TI-2026-23372 node-tar: Hardlink Path Traversal via Drive-Relative Linkpath CVSS 4.0HIGH 8.2
- TI-2026-20041 node-tar Vulnerable to Arbitrary File Creation/Overwrite via Hardlink Path Traversal CVSS 3.1HIGH 8.2
Sources
- CVE-2026-23745 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-23745 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-8qq5-rm4j-mr97 · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2026-23745 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences