What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-24846: malcontent's archive extraction could write outside extraction directory

• Severity: medium (CVSS 5.0 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2026-01-29 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-22

Description

malcontent discovers supply-chain compromises through. context, differential analysis, and YARA. Starting in version 1.8.0 and prior to version 1.20.3, malcontent could be made to create symlinks outside the intended extraction directory when scanning a specially crafted tar or deb archive. The `handleSymlink` function received arguments in the wrong order, causing the symlink target to be used as the symlink location. Additionally, symlink targets were not validated to ensure they resolved within the extraction directory. Version 1.20.3 introduces fixes that swap handleSymlink arguments, validate symlink location, and validate symlink targets that resolve within an extraction directory.

Affected products

• chainguard-dev malcontent: from 1.8.0 before 1.20.3 — fixed in 1.20.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: chainguard-dev malcontent 1.20.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://github.com/chainguard-dev/malcontent/commit/259fca5abc004f3ab238895463ef280a87f30e96
• https://github.com/chainguard-dev/malcontent/commit/a7dd8a5328ddbaf235568437813efa7591e00017
• https://github.com/chainguard-dev/malcontent/security/advisories/GHSA-923j-vrcg-hxwh

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