Detections
Analytics
SCA: security update for tar (GHSA-9r2w-394v-53qc)
high Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security Plugin ID 413438
Description
There are packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability referenced in the following CVE:- The npm package "tar" (aka node-tar) before versions 4.4.16, 5.0.8, and 6.1.7 has an arbitrary file
creation/overwrite and arbitrary code execution vulnerability. node-tar aims to guarantee that any file
whose location would be modified by a symbolic link is not extracted. This is, in part, achieved by
ensuring that extracted directories are not symlinks. Additionally, in order to prevent unnecessary stat
calls to determine whether a given path is a directory, paths are cached when directories are created.
This logic was insufficient when extracting tar files that contained both a directory and a symlink with
the same name as the directory, where the symlink and directory names in the archive entry used
backslashes as a path separator on posix systems. The cache checking logic used both `\` and `/`
characters as path separators, however `\` is a valid filename character on posix systems. By first
creating a directory, and then replacing that directory with a symlink, it was thus possible to bypass
node-tar symlink checks on directories, essentially allowing an untrusted tar file to symlink into an
arbitrary location and subsequently extracting arbitrary files into that location, thus allowing arbitrary
file creation and overwrite. Additionally, a similar confusion could arise on case-insensitive
filesystems. If a tar archive contained a directory at `FOO`, followed by a symbolic link named `foo`,
then on case-insensitive file systems, the creation of the symbolic link would remove the directory from
the filesystem, but _not_ from the internal directory cache, as it would not be treated as a cache hit. A
subsequent file entry within the `FOO` directory would then be placed in the target of the symbolic link,
thinking that the directory had already been created. These issues were addressed in releases 4.4.16,
5.0.8 and 6.1.7. The v3 branch of node-tar has been deprecated and did not receive patches for these
issues. If you are still using a v3 release we recommend you update to a more recent version of node-tar.
If this is not possible, a workaround is available in the referenced GHSA-9r2w-394v-53qc. (CVE-2021-37701)
See Also
Plugin Details
Severity: High
ID: 413438
Version: Revision 1.5
Type: Local
Family: SCA Checks
Published: 1/23/2025
Updated: 7/2/2026
Supported Sensors: Tenable Cloud Security, Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security
Risk Information
VPR
Risk Factor: Medium
Score: 5
Percentile: 94.66
Vendor
Vendor Severity: High
CVSS v2
Risk Factor: Medium
Base Score: 4.4
Temporal Score: 3.3
Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
CVSS Score Source: CVE-2021-37701
CVSS v3
Risk Factor: High
Base Score: 8.6
Temporal Score: 7.5
Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C
Vulnerability Information
Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available
Patch Publication Date: 8/31/2021
Vulnerability Publication Date: 8/31/2021
Reference Information
CVE: CVE-2021-37701