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.

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

  - 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. (CVE-2026-53655)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

There are packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability referenced in the following CVE:

  - 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. (CVE-2026-53655)

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
322160	Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-53655	Nessus	Misc.	medium
443204	SCA: security update for tar (GHSA-vmf3-w455-68vh)	Tenable Cloud Security	SCA Checks	medium
443204	SCA: security update for tar (GHSA-vmf3-w455-68vh)	Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security	SCA Checks	medium

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2026-53655

medium

Tenable Plugins

medium

medium

medium