CVE-2026-42496
Published: 26 May 2026
Summary
CVE-2026-42496 is a critical-severity Link Following (CWE-59) vulnerability in Archive\ \. Its CVSS base score is 9.1 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 34.5th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-31774
Vulnerability details
Archive::Tar versions before 3.08 for Perl extract symlinks with attacker controlled targets outside the extraction directory. _make_special_file() passes the tar header's linkname to symlink() without validating it against absolute paths or .. segments. The secure-extract mode check that guards regular…
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file extraction does not cover the symlink target. A subsequent open through the extracted name reads or writes the attacker chosen path.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Path traversal via malicious tar symlink extraction directly enables exploitation of applications using the vulnerable Archive::Tar library (typically public-facing services processing untrusted archives).
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
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.
Validates pathnames and filenames to prevent traversal outside intended directories.