CVE-2026-33056CWE-61

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

Medium · published March 20, 2026

CVSS v4.0
5.1
EPSS
0%
Percentile
31.4
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

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.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v4.0
5.1 · MEDIUM
Vector
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
EPSS
0.00386 · 31.4th percentile
Weakness
CWE-61 · UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
Published
2026-03-20T07:11Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 20 MAR 07:11Z
    tar-rs: unpack_in can chmod arbitrary directories by following symlinks
    cvelistv5