CVE-2026-18477

Public on 2026-08-03
Modified on 2026-08-05
Description
A TOCTOU (Time-of-Check Time-of-Use) vulnerability in GNU tar's incremental dumpdir 'X' rename handling allows a local attacker with write access to a directory being backed up to influence the restore process if the attacker has access to the system where the restore is being performed. During restoration, files or directories may be created, renamed or overwritten outside the intended extraction directory. This could lead to unauthorized file modification or, in some cases, privilege escalation. Exploitation does not require the attacker to modify or craft the archive, and standard backup and restore workflows—including extracting into a newly created directory without using the -P option do not mitigate the issue.
Severity
Medium severity
Medium
See what this means
CVSS v3 Base Score
4.4
See breakdown

Affected Packages

Platform Package Release Date Advisory Status
Amazon Linux 2 - Core tar Pending Fix
Amazon Linux 2023 tar Pending Fix

CVSS Scores

Score Type Score Vector
Amazon Linux CVSSv3 4.4 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N