CVE-2026-33056: tar-rs: unpack_in can chmod arbitrary directories by following symlinks

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2026-03-20 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-61

Description

tar-rs is a tar archive reading/writing library for Rust. In versions 0.4.44 and below, when unpacking a tar archive, the tar crate's unpack_dir function uses fs::metadata() to check whether a path that already exists is a directory. Because fs::metadata() follows symbolic links, a crafted tarball containing a symlink entry followed by a directory entry with the same name causes the crate to treat the symlink target as a valid existing directory — and subsequently apply chmod to it. This allows an attacker to modify the permissions of arbitrary directories outside the extraction root. This issue has been fixed in version 0.4.45.

Affected products

Tar Project Tar: before 0.4.45 — fixed in 0.4.45

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Tar Project Tar 0.4.45. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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