CVE-2025-45582
Unknown Unknown - Not Provided
BaseFortify

Publication date: 2025-07-11

Last updated on: 2025-11-02

Assigner: MITRE

Description
GNU Tar through 1.35 allows file overwrite via directory traversal in crafted TAR archives, with a certain two-step process. First, the victim must extract an archive that contains a ../ symlink to a critical directory. Second, the victim must extract an archive that contains a critical file, specified via a relative pathname that begins with the symlink name and ends with that critical file's name. Here, the extraction follows the symlink and overwrites the critical file. This bypasses the protection mechanism of "Member name contains '..'" that would occur for a single TAR archive that attempted to specify the critical file via a ../ approach. For example, the first archive can contain "x -> ../../../../../home/victim/.ssh" and the second archive can contain x/authorized_keys. This can affect server applications that automatically extract any number of user-supplied TAR archives, and were relying on the blocking of traversal. This can also affect software installation processes in which "tar xf" is run more than once (e.g., when installing a package can automatically install two dependencies that are set up as untrusted tarballs instead of official packages). NOTE: the official GNU Tar manual has an otherwise-empty directory for each "tar xf" in its Security Rules of Thumb; however, third-party advice leads users to run "tar xf" more than once into the same directory.
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Meta Information
Published
2025-07-11
Last Modified
2025-11-02
Generated
2026-05-07
AI Q&A
2025-07-11
EPSS Evaluated
2026-05-05
NVD
CVE-2025-45582
Affected Vendors & Products
Showing 1 associated CPE
Vendor Product Version / Range
gnu tar to 1.35 (exc)
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
CWE
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KEV
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CWE ID Description
CWE-24 The product uses external input to construct a pathname that should be within a restricted directory, but it does not properly neutralize "../" sequences that can resolve to a location that is outside of that directory.
Attack-Flow Graph
AI Powered Q&A
Can you explain this vulnerability to me?

This vulnerability in GNU Tar through version 1.35 allows an attacker to overwrite files via directory traversal using a two-step process. First, the victim extracts a TAR archive containing a symlink with a relative path (../) pointing to a critical directory. Then, the victim extracts another TAR archive containing a file whose path starts with the symlink name and ends with the critical file's name. The extraction process follows the symlink and overwrites the critical file, bypassing protections that block traversal within a single archive.


How can this vulnerability impact me? :

This vulnerability can lead to unauthorized overwriting of critical files on a system, potentially allowing an attacker to modify important configuration or security files. This can compromise server applications that automatically extract user-supplied TAR archives, leading to possible data integrity issues, privilege escalation, or denial of service.


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