What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-54574: `proot-distro install` has a Symlink Escape (Arbitrary Host File Write) via Malicious Tar Archive

• Severity: high (CVSS 8.2 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: 2026-07-29 · updated 2026-10-24
• Weakness: CWE-61

Description

proot-distro is a utility for managing proot containers. Prior to version 5.1.5, proot-distro install extracted plain tarball root filesystems through _extract_plain_tar() in proot_distro/commands/install.py and Docker layers through _apply_layer() in proot_distro/helpers/docker.py without validating archive-controlled symlink targets in member.linkname, allowing a malicious archive to plant an absolute host-path symlink and write files through it onto the host filesystem. This issue is fixed in version 5.1.5.

Affected products

• termux proot-distro: before 5.1.5

References

• https://github.com/termux/proot-distro/commit/a96d7a9667f38e45d812614852ee3915d1c0ae45
• https://github.com/termux/proot-distro/releases/tag/v5.1.5
• https://github.com/termux/proot-distro/security/advisories/GHSA-9xq3-3fqg-4vg7
• https://github.com/termux/proot-distro/security/advisories/GHSA-9xq3-3fqg-4vg7

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