Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2026-53655 json

node-tar applies PAX size override to intermediary GNU long-name/long-link headers, causing tar parser interpretation differential (file smuggling)

published 2026-06-15 4 mo ago modified 2026-10-25 14 d ago also EUVD-2026-38255 , GHSA-vmf3-w455-68vh

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 4%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

node-tar is a full-featured Tar for Node.js. Prior to 7.5.16, tar (node-tar) applies a PAX extended header's size= record (and other PAX overrides) to the next header entry of any type, including intermediary metadata headers such as a GNU long-name (L) or long-link (K) entry. Per POSIX pax, a PAX extended header (x) describes the next file entry, not the intermediary extension headers that may sit between the x header and the file it annotates. Because node-tar lets the PAX size override the byte length of an intervening L/K/x header, an attacker can desynchronize node-tar's stream cursor relative to every other mainstream tar implementation (GNU tar, libarchive/bsdtar, Python tarfile, and the now-fixed tar-rs / astral-tokio-tar). The result is a tar parser interpretation differential (CWE-436): a single crafted archive yields a different set of members under node-tar than under the reference tar tools. An attacker can use this to hide a member from one parser while it is visible to another, which defeats security tooling whose scanner and extractor disagree on archive contents (e.g. a malware/secret scanner that lists entries with one library while a downstream step extracts with another) This vulnerability is fixed in 7.5.16.

Patch / fix

  • npm tar 7.5.16
  • isaacs tar 7.5.16
  • tar_project tar 7.5.16
  • node-tar Debian 14 7.5.16+~4.0.1-2

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-53655

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-53655 updated cvss 6.1

node-tar: node-tar: File smuggling due to inconsistent tar archive parsing

  • Red Hat Confidential Compute Attestation openshift-sandboxed-containers/osc-pccs Red Hat Cryostat 4 tar 6.2.1, grafana-infinity-datasource-npm, cryostat-openshift-console-plugin-npm Red Hat Exploit Intelligence exploit-intelligence-tech-preview/vulnerability-analysis-rhel9 Red Hat Migration Toolkit for Containers rhmtc/openshift-migration-ui-rhel8 Red Hat Node HealthCheck Operator workload-availability/node-healthcheck-rhel9-operator, workload-availability/node-healthcheck-operator-bundle, workload-availability/node-healthcheck-must-gather-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift Lightspeed openshift-lightspeed/lightspeed-agentic-sandbox-rhel9, openshift-lightspeed/lightspeed-to-dataverse-exporter-rhel9
    +34 more products
    Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines openshift-pipelines/pipelines-console-plugin-rhel8, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-console-plugin-rhel9, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-console-plugin-pf5-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh 3 openshift-service-mesh/kiali-rhel9, openshift-service-mesh/kiali-ossmc-rhel9 Red Hat Pen Drive Powered by Red Hat Lightspeed pen-drive/pen-drive-scanner-rhel9 Red Hat 3scale API Management Platform 2 3scale-amp21/system, 3scale-amp22/system, 3scale-amp2/system-rhel7, 3scale-amp2/system-rhel8, 3scale-amp2/system-rhel9 Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2 rhacm2/volsync-rhel9, rhacm2/volsync-operator-bundle Red Hat AMQ Broker 7 tar 6.2.1 Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 ansible-automation-platform-26/hub-rhel9, ansible-automation-platform-27/hub-rhel9, ansible-automation-platform-26/gateway-rhel9, ansible-automation-platform-27/gateway-rhel9, ansible-automation-platform-26/mcp-tools-rhel9, ansible-automation-platform-27/mcp-tools-rhel9, +24 more Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Ansible Core 2 ansible-automation-platform/ee-minimal-rhel8, ansible-automation-platform/ee-minimal-rhel9, ansible-automation-platform-tech-preview/ee-minimal-rhel8, ansible-automation-platform-tech-preview/ee-minimal-rhel9 Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4 tar 6.2.1 Red Hat build of Apache Camel for Spring Boot 4 tar 6.2.1 Red Hat Build of Podman Desktop rh-podman-desktop.git Red Hat Connectivity Link 1 rhcl-1/rhcl-console-plugin-rhel9 Red Hat Developer Hub 1 rhdh/rhdh-hub-rhel9 Red Hat Discovery 2 discovery/discovery-server-rhel9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 tar 1.35-7.el10_0.2 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 tar 1.35-7.el10_0.2 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 npm, rls, rust, cargo, clippy, nodejs, +39 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 npm, rust, bootc, cargo, goose, clippy, +46 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 igvm, mesa, rust, bootc, goose, libkrun, +14 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI (RHEL AI) 3 rust, rhelai3/bootc-cuda-rhel9, rhelai3/bootc-rocm-rhel9, rhelai3/bootc-gaudi-rhel9, rhelai3/disk-image-cuda-rhel9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux command line assistant rhel-cla/rhel-knowledge-bridge-rhel10 Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7 tar 6.2.1 Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Expansion Pack tar 6.2.1 Red Hat Offline Knowledge Portal offline-knowledge-portal/rhokp-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) rhoai/odh-mlflow-rhel9, rhoai/odh-dashboard-rhel9, rhoai/odh-mod-arch-maas-rhel9, rhoai/odh-mod-arch-automl-rhel9, rhoai/odh-mod-arch-gen-ai-rhel9, rhoai/odh-mod-arch-mlflow-rhel9, +8 more Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 rpm-ostree, kata-containers, rpm-ostree-libs, openshift4/ose-console, openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8, openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9, +2 more Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9, openshift5/ose-console-rhel9, openshift5/ose-agent-installer-ui-rhel9 Red Hat Openshift Data Foundation 4 odf4/mcg-core-rhel9, odf4/odf-console-rhel9, odf4/ocs-client-console-rhel9, odf4/odf-multicluster-console-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces devspaces/code-rhel9, devspaces/openvsx-rhel9, devspaces/dashboard-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift Update Service openshift-update-service/openshift-update-service-rhel8 Red Hat Quay 3 quay/quay-rhel8, quay/quay-rhel9 Red Hat Satellite 6 python-maturin, python3.12-maturin, satellite/iop-vmaas-rhel9, satellite/iop-remediations-rhel9, satellite/iop-advisor-engine-rhel9, satellite/iop-host-inventory-rhel9, +2 more Red Hat Single Sign-On 7 tar 6.2.1 Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer rhtas/rekor-search-ui-rhel9
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”

2 more affected, 1 more not affected in the full advisory

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
4 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.16% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 4% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/isaacs/node-tar/security/advisories/GHSA-vmf3-w455-68vh referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 4.0 6.9 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CNA 4.0 6.9 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
npm tar
<7.5.16
7.5.16

Affected products

  • isaacs node-tar

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

CPEs and fixed versions use Anchore's correction of NVD's data: Added CPE configurations because not yet analyzed by NVD.