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.

The remote RockyLinux 8 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the RLSA-2026:49524 advisory.

    * perl-Archive-Tar: perl-Archive-Tar: Denial of Service via crafted tar header with large entry size     (CVE-2026-9538)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the RockyLinux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote RockyLinux 9 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the RLSA-2026:49525 advisory.

    * perl-Archive-Tar: perl-Archive-Tar: Denial of Service via crafted tar header with large entry size     (CVE-2026-9538)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the RockyLinux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote RockyLinux 10 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the RLSA-2026:49523 advisory.

    * perl-Archive-Tar: perl-Archive-Tar: Denial of Service via crafted tar header with large entry size     (CVE-2026-9538)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the RockyLinux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote Oracle Linux 8 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the ELSA-2026-49524 advisory.

    - Fix CVE-2026-9538: cap per-entry declared size during tar read to       defend against attacker-controlled size-field memory DoS

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Oracle Linux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote AlmaLinux 9 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the ALSA-2026:49525 advisory.

    * perl-Archive-Tar: perl-Archive-Tar: Denial of Service via crafted tar header with large entry size     (CVE-2026-9538)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the AlmaLinux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote Oracle Linux 9 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the ELSA-2026-49525 advisory.

    - Fix CVE-2026-9538: add  cap for tar entry size during       read to prevent memory allocation DoS

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Oracle Linux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote Oracle Linux 10 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the ELSA-2026-49523 advisory.

    - Fix CVE-2026-9538: cap per-entry declared size during archive       reading to prevent memory DoS

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Oracle Linux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 10 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the RHSA-2026:49523 advisory.

    Archive::Tar provides an object oriented mechanism for handling tar files.  It provides class methods for     quick and easy files handling while also allowing for the creation of tar file objects for custom     manipulation.  If you have the IO::Zlib module installed, Archive::Tar will also support compressed or     gzipped tar files.

    Security Fix(es):

    * perl-Archive-Tar: perl-Archive-Tar: Denial of Service via crafted tar header with large entry size     (CVE-2026-9538)

    For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and     other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 9 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the RHSA-2026:49525 advisory.

    Archive::Tar provides an object oriented mechanism for handling tar files.  It provides class methods for     quick and easy files handling while also allowing for the creation of tar file objects for custom     manipulation.  If you have the IO::Zlib module installed, Archive::Tar will also support compressed or     gzipped tar files.

    Security Fix(es):

    * perl-Archive-Tar: perl-Archive-Tar: Denial of Service via crafted tar header with large entry size     (CVE-2026-9538)

    For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and     other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 8 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the RHSA-2026:49524 advisory.

    Archive::Tar provides an object oriented mechanism for handling tar files.  It provides class methods for     quick and easy files handling while also allowing for the creation of tar file objects for custom     manipulation.  If you have the IO::Zlib module installed, Archive::Tar will also support compressed or     gzipped tar files.

    Security Fix(es):

    * perl-Archive-Tar: perl-Archive-Tar: Denial of Service via crafted tar header with large entry size     (CVE-2026-9538)

    For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and     other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote AlmaLinux 8 host has packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the ALSA-2026:48225 advisory.

    * perl-Archive-Tar: perl-Archive-Tar: Denial of Service via crafted tar header with large entry size     (CVE-2026-9538)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the AlmaLinux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote RockyLinux 8 host has packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the RLSA-2026:48225 advisory.

    * perl-Archive-Tar: perl-Archive-Tar: Denial of Service via crafted tar header with large entry size     (CVE-2026-9538)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the RockyLinux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 8 host has packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the RHSA-2026:48225 advisory.

    Perl is a high-level programming language that is commonly used for system administration utilities and     web programming.

    Security Fix(es):

    * perl-Archive-Tar: perl-Archive-Tar: Denial of Service via crafted tar header with large entry size     (CVE-2026-9538)

    For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and     other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

It is, therefore, affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the ALAS2023-2026-1805 advisory.

    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.

    NOTE: https://lists.security.metacpan.org/cve-announce/msg/40396459/ (CVE-2026-42496)

    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.

    NOTE: https://lists.security.metacpan.org/cve-announce/msg/40396457/ (CVE-2026-42497)

    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.

    NOTE: https://lists.security.metacpan.org/cve-announce/msg/40396448/ (CVE-2026-9538)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the tested product security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The version of perl-Archive-Tar installed on the remote host is prior to 1.92-3. It is, therefore, affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the ALAS2-2026-3347 advisory.

    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.

    NOTE: https://lists.security.metacpan.org/cve-announce/msg/40396459/ (CVE-2026-42496)

    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.

    NOTE: https://lists.security.metacpan.org/cve-announce/msg/40396457/ (CVE-2026-42497)

    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.

    NOTE: https://lists.security.metacpan.org/cve-announce/msg/40396448/ (CVE-2026-9538)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the tested product security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

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

  - 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.
    (CVE-2026-9538)

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

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
331936	RockyLinux 8 : perl-Archive-Tar (RLSA-2026:49524)	Nessus	Rocky Linux Local Security Checks	high
331935	RockyLinux 9 : perl-Archive-Tar (RLSA-2026:49525)	Nessus	Rocky Linux Local Security Checks	high
331931	RockyLinux 10 : perl-Archive-Tar (RLSA-2026:49523)	Nessus	Rocky Linux Local Security Checks	high
331821	Oracle Linux 8 : perl-Archive-Tar (ELSA-2026-49524)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	high
331757	AlmaLinux 9 : perl-Archive-Tar (ALSA-2026:49525)	Nessus	Alma Linux Local Security Checks	high
331755	Oracle Linux 9 : perl-Archive-Tar (ELSA-2026-49525)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	high
331724	Oracle Linux 10 : perl-Archive-Tar (ELSA-2026-49523)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	high
331712	RHEL 10 : perl-Archive-Tar (RHSA-2026:49523)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	high
331694	RHEL 9 : perl-Archive-Tar (RHSA-2026:49525)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	high
331683	RHEL 8 : perl-Archive-Tar (RHSA-2026:49524)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	high
331657	AlmaLinux 8 : perl:5.32 (ALSA-2026:48225)	Nessus	Alma Linux Local Security Checks	high
330842	RockyLinux 8 : perl:5.32 (RLSA-2026:48225)	Nessus	Rocky Linux Local Security Checks	high
330831	RHEL 8 : perl:5.32 (RHSA-2026:48225)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	high
319782	Amazon Linux 2023 : perl-Archive-Tar, perl-Archive-Tar-tests (ALAS2023-2026-1805)	Nessus	Amazon Linux Local Security Checks	critical
319771	Amazon Linux 2 : perl-Archive-Tar, --advisory ALAS2-2026-3347 (ALAS-2026-3347)	Nessus	Amazon Linux Local Security Checks	critical
316803	Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-9538	Nessus	Misc.	high

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2026-9538

high

Tenable Plugins

high

high

high

high

high

high

high

high

high

high

high

high

high

critical

critical

high