CVE-2022-23522: Arbitrary File Write when Extracting Tarballs retrieved from a remote location using in mindsdb

Severity: high (CVSS 8.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.9% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2023-03-30 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-22

Description

MindsDB is an open source machine learning platform. An unsafe extraction is being performed using `shutil.unpack_archive()` from a remotely retrieved tarball. Which may lead to the writing of the extracted files to an unintended location. This vulnerability is sometimes called a **TarSlip** or a **ZipSlip variant**. Unpacking files using the high-level function `shutil.unpack_archive()` from a potentially malicious tarball without validating that the destination file path remained within the intended destination directory may cause files to be overwritten outside the destination directory. An attacker could craft a malicious tarball with a filename path, such as `../../../../../../../../etc/passwd`, and then serve the archive remotely using a personal bucket `s3`, thus, retrieve the tarball through **mindsdb** and overwrite the system files of the hosting server. This issue has been addressed in version 22.11.4.3. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade should avoid ingesting archives from untrusted sources.

Affected products

mindsdb: before 22.11.4.3 — fixed in 22.11.4.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: mindsdb 22.11.4.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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