In Perl through 5.26.2, the Archive::Tar module allows remote attackers to bypass a directory-traversal protection mechanism, and overwrite arbitrary files, via an archive file containing a symlink and a regular file with the same name.

• https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2018-12015
• https://github.com/jib/archive-tar-new/commit/ae65651eab053fc6dc4590dbb863a268215c1fc5

Directory traversal vulnerability in the Archive::Tar Perl module 1.36 and earlier allows user-assisted remote attackers to overwrite arbitrary files via a TAR archive that contains a file whose name is an absolute path or has ".." sequences.

• http://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=29517
• https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=295021
• http://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=30380
• https://issues.rpath.com/browse/RPL-1716
• http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/26355
• http://secunia.com/advisories/27539
• http://osvdb.org/40410
• http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-700-1
• http://secunia.com/advisories/33314
• http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-700-2
• http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200812-10.xml
• http://secunia.com/advisories/33116
• http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2007/3755
• https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/38285
• https://oval.cisecurity.org/repository/search/definition/oval%3Aorg.mitre.oval%3Adef%3A11658

'(1) cpan/Archive-Tar/bin/ptar, (2) cpan/Archive-Tar/bin/ptardiff, (3) cpan/Archive-Tar/bin/ptargrep, (4) cpan/CPAN/scripts/cpan, (5) cpan/Digest-SHA/shasum, (6) cpan/Encode/bin/enc2xs, (7) cpan/Encode/bin/encguess, (8) cpan/Encode/bin/piconv, (9) cpan/Encode/bin/ucmlint, (10) cpan/Encode/bin/unidump, (11) cpan/ExtUtils-MakeMaker/bin/instmodsh, (12) cpan/IO-Compress/bin/zipdetails, (13) cpan/JSON-PP/bin/json_pp, (14) cpan/Test-Harness/bin/prove, (15) dist/ExtUtils-ParseXS/lib/ExtUtils/xsubpp, (16) dist/Module-CoreList/corelist, (17) ext/Pod-Html/bin/pod2html, (18) utils/c2ph.PL, (19) utils/h2ph.PL, (20) utils/h2xs.PL, (21) utils/libnetcfg.PL, (22) utils/perlbug.PL, (23) utils/perldoc.PL, (24) utils/perlivp.PL, and (25) utils/splain.PL in Perl 5.x before 5.22.3-RC2 and 5.24 before 5.24.1-RC2 do not properly remove . (period) characters from the end of the includes directory array, which might allow local users to gain privileges via a Trojan horse module under the current working directory.'

• http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2016/07/msg238271.html
• http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1036440
• http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git/commit/cee96d52c39b1e7b36e1c62d38bcd8d86e9a41ab
• https://rt.perl.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=127834
• http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/92136
• http://www.debian.org/security/2016/dsa-3628
• https://h20566.www2.hpe.com/portal/site/hpsc/public/kb/docDisplay?docId=emr_na-c05240731
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/DOFRQWJRP2NQJEYEWOMECVW3HAMD5SYN/
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/TZBNQH3DMI7HDELJAZ4TFJJANHXOEDWH/
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/2FBQOCV3GBAN2EYZUM3CFDJ4ECA3GZOK/
• https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201701-75
• https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/7f6a16bc0fd0fd5e67c7fd95bd655069a2ac7d1f88e42d3c853e601c@%3Cannounce.apache.org%3E
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/11/msg00016.html
• https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201812-07
• http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-08/msg00002.html

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 file extraction does not cover the symlink target. A subsequent open through the extracted name reads or writes the attacker chosen path.

• https://github.com/jib/archive-tar-new/commit/17c873492a05eddc0de18c1485e0b2cccd5a9158.patch
• https://metacpan.org/release/BINGOS/Archive-Tar-3.08/changes
• https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-42497

Archive::Tar versions before 3.08 for Perl extract hardlinks to attacker controlled paths outside the extraction directory. _make_special_file() passes the tar header's linkname to link() without validating it against absolute paths or .. segments, creating a hardlink that shares the victim file's inode. A subsequent write through the extracted name modifies the victim file, and the post-extraction chmod, chown, and utime block in _extract_file() (guarded only against symlinks via -l) applies the tar header's mode, owner, and timestamps to the shared inode during extraction alone.

• https://github.com/jib/archive-tar-new/commit/17c873492a05eddc0de18c1485e0b2cccd5a9158.patch
• https://metacpan.org/release/BINGOS/Archive-Tar-3.08/changes
• https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-42496

Archive::Tar versions before 3.10 for Perl allow memory exhaustion via attacker controlled entry size field in tar header. _read_tar() reads each entry's payload with $handle->read($$data, $block), where $block is derived from the entry's 12-byte size field in the tar header with no upper bound on that value. A crafted header declaring a multi-gigabyte size causes Perl to allocate a scalar of that size.

• https://github.com/jib/archive-tar-new/commit/f9af01426038e29d9578825a0cd3626946ab08c7.patch
• https://metacpan.org/release/BINGOS/Archive-Tar-3.10/changes