Cyber Resilience

CVE-2021-32803

High

Published: 03 August 2021

Published
03 August 2021
Modified
21 November 2024
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 8.2 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0012 30.9th percentile
Risk Priority 16 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2021-32803 is a high-severity Path Traversal (CWE-22) vulnerability in Tar Project Tar. Its CVSS base score is 8.2 (High).

Operationally, ranked at the 30.9th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

The npm package "tar" (aka node-tar) before versions 6.1.2, 5.0.7, 4.4.15, and 3.2.3 has an arbitrary File Creation/Overwrite vulnerability via insufficient symlink protection. `node-tar` aims to guarantee that any file whose location would be modified by a symbolic link is…

more

not extracted. This is, in part, achieved by ensuring that extracted directories are not symlinks. Additionally, in order to prevent unnecessary `stat` calls to determine whether a given path is a directory, paths are cached when directories are created. This logic was insufficient when extracting tar files that contained both a directory and a symlink with the same name as the directory. This order of operations resulted in the directory being created and added to the `node-tar` directory cache. When a directory is present in the directory cache, subsequent calls to mkdir for that directory are skipped. However, this is also where `node-tar` checks for symlinks occur. By first creating a directory, and then replacing that directory with a symlink, it was thus possible to bypass `node-tar` symlink checks on directories, essentially allowing an untrusted tar file to symlink into an arbitrary location and subsequently extracting arbitrary files into that location, thus allowing arbitrary file creation and overwrite. This issue was addressed in releases 3.2.3, 4.4.15, 5.0.7 and 6.1.2.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.

Affected Assets

tar project
tar
≤ 3.2.3 · 4.0.0 — 4.4.15 · 5.0.0 — 5.0.7
oracle
graalvm
20.3.3, 21.2.0
siemens
sinec infrastructure network services
≤ 1.0.1.1

Mitigating Controls

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

addresses: CWE-22

Validates pathnames and filenames to prevent traversal outside intended directories.

References