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  5. GHSA-3pv8-6f4r-ffg2

GHSA-3pv8-6f4r-ffg2: tar has a PAX header desynchronization issue

May 29, 2026

When a tar stream contains multiple “header” entries prior to a file entry, tar-rs applies the PAX header (x) to the next entry in the stream, regardless of type. For example, a stream of x -> L -> file (PAX, GNU longname, file) would result in x’s extensions being applied to L rather than to file.

Per POSIX pax, this is incorrect: a PAX header always applies to a file entry, not any intermediary entries. See the “pax Header Block” section for the specific prescription there.

As a result of this, an attacker can contrive a tar containing a sequence of tar headers such that tar-rs applies the PAX header’s size extension to the next header in sequence, effectively desynchronizing the stream and enabling tar-rs specific skippage/extraction of members. In other words, a file can be contrived to extract differently on tar-rs than on other tar parsers.

References

  • github.com/advisories/GHSA-3pv8-6f4r-ffg2
  • github.com/composefs/tar-rs/commit/bab14dd84b411ac16ecb56d4f2d2f7bfb88a9838
  • github.com/composefs/tar-rs/pull/454
  • github.com/composefs/tar-rs/releases/tag/0.4.46
  • github.com/composefs/tar-rs/security/advisories/GHSA-3pv8-6f4r-ffg2

Code Behaviors & Features

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Affected versions

All versions before 0.4.46

Fixed versions

  • 0.4.46

Solution

Upgrade to version 0.4.46 or above.

Weakness

  • CWE-20: Improper Input Validation
  • CWE-843: Access of Resource Using Incompatible Type ('Type Confusion')

Source file

cargo/tar/GHSA-3pv8-6f4r-ffg2.yml

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