CVE-2026-53655

Public on 2026-06-22
Modified on 2026-06-25
Description
node-tar is a full-featured Tar for Node.js. Prior to 7.5.16, tar (node-tar) applies a PAX extended header's size= record (and other PAX overrides) to the next header entry of any type, including intermediary metadata headers such as a GNU long-name (L) or long-link (K) entry. Per POSIX pax, a PAX extended header (x) describes the next file entry, not the intermediary extension headers that may sit between the x header and the file it annotates. Because node-tar lets the PAX size override the byte length of an intervening L/K/x header, an attacker can desynchronize node-tar's stream cursor relative to every other mainstream tar implementation (GNU tar, libarchive/bsdtar, Python tarfile, and the now-fixed tar-rs / astral-tokio-tar). The result is a tar parser interpretation differential (CWE-436): a single crafted archive yields a different set of members under node-tar than under the reference tar tools. An attacker can use this to hide a member from one parser while it is visible to another, which defeats security tooling whose scanner and extractor disagree on archive contents (e.g. a malware/secret scanner that lists entries with one library while a downstream step extracts with another) This vulnerability is fixed in 7.5.16.
Severity
Medium severity
Medium
See what this means
CVSS v3 Base Score
6.2
See breakdown

Affected Packages

Platform Package Release Date Advisory Status
Amazon Linux 2023 nodejs No Fix Planned
Amazon Linux 2023 nodejs20 No Fix Planned
Amazon Linux 2023 nodejs22 Pending Fix
Amazon Linux 2023 nodejs24 Pending Fix

CVSS Scores

Score Type Score Vector
Amazon Linux CVSSv3 6.2 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N