Skip to content
Fencer Intel
high 7.5

CVE-2026-42497 json

Archive::Tar versions before 3.08 for Perl extract hardlinks to attacker controlled paths outside the extraction directory

published 5mo ago modified 3mo ago also EUVD-2026-31777

cvss
7.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 39%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Archive::Tar versions before 3.08 for Perl extract hardlinks to attacker controlled paths outside the extraction directory.

_make_special_file() passes the tar header's linkname to link() without validating it against absolute paths or .. segments, creating a hardlink that shares the victim file's inode.

A subsequent write through the extracted name modifies the victim file, and the post-extraction chmod, chown, and utime block in _extract_file() (guarded only against symlinks via -l) applies the tar header's mode, owner, and timestamps to the shared inode during extraction alone.

Patch / fix

  • BINGOS Archive::Tar 3.08
  • perl Debian 12 5.36.0-7+deb12u4
  • perl Debian 13 5.40.1-6+deb13u1
  • perl Debian 14 5.42.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-42497

  • perl Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 5.38.2-3.2ubuntu0.3

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-42497

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • perl Alpine 3.24 5.42.3-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2026-42497

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • perl Azure Linux 3.0 5.38.2-510

azure linux advisories AZL-89136

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

Is CVE-2026-42497 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

Check with Fencer

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-42497 updated cvss 6.8

perl-Archive-Tar: perl-Archive-Tar: Arbitrary file modification via crafted hardlinks during archive extraction

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perl-Archive-Tar
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perl-Archive-Tar Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 perl-Archive-Tar Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 perl-Archive-Tar
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
5mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.46% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 39% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
NVD 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
CNA 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Affected products

  • BINGOS Archive::Tar

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-59 Improper Link Resolution Before File Access
  • CWE-732 Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.