CVE-2023-38497: Cargo not respecting umask when extracting crate archives

Severity: high (CVSS 7.3 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.7% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2023-08-04 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-278

Description

Cargo downloads the Rust project’s dependencies and compiles the project. Cargo prior to version 0.72.2, bundled with Rust prior to version 1.71.1, did not respect the umask when extracting crate archives on UNIX-like systems. If the user downloaded a crate containing files writeable by any local user, another local user could exploit this to change the source code compiled and executed by the current user. To prevent existing cached extractions from being exploitable, the Cargo binary version 0.72.2 included in Rust 1.71.1 or later will purge caches generated by older Cargo versions automatically. As a workaround, configure one's system to prevent other local users from accessing the Cargo directory, usually located in `~/.cargo`.

Affected products

Fedoraproject Fedora: 38
rust-lang cargo: before 0.72.2 — fixed in 0.72.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: rust-lang cargo 0.72.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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