Bypassing extraction filter to create symlinks to arbitrary targets outside extraction directory
Vulnerability Description
Allows the extraction filter to be ignored, allowing symlink targets to point outside the destination directory, and the modification of some file metadata. You are affected by this vulnerability if using the tarfile module to extract untrusted tar archives using TarFile.extractall() or TarFile.extract() using the filter= parameter with a value of "data" or "tar". See the tarfile extraction filters documentation https://docs.python.org/3/library/tarfile.html#tarfile-extraction-filter for more information. Note that for Python 3.14 or later the default value of filter= changed from "no filtering" to `"data", so if you are relying on this new default behavior then your usage is also affected. Note that none of these vulnerabilities significantly affect the installation of source distributions which are tar archives as source distributions already allow arbitrary code execution during the build process. However when evaluating source distributions it's important to avoid installing source distributions with suspicious links.
Impact Analysis
Refer to official advisory for detailed impact metrics.
Remediation
Ensure systems are updated to the latest vendor-supplied patch levels.
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Credits & Attribution
The following person or organization is credited with identifying this vulnerability, as recorded in the NVD database:
- Caleb Brown (Google)
- Petr Viktorin
- Serhiy Storchaka
- Hugo van Kemenade
- Łukasz Langa
- Thomas Wouters
- Seth Larson
References
- https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/135034
- https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/135037
- https://mail.python.org/archives/list/security-announce@python.org/thread/MAXIJJCUUMCL7ATZNDVEGGHUMQMUUKLG/
- https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/3612d8f51741b11f36f8fb0494d79086bac9390a
- https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/9e0ac76d96cf80b49055f6d6b9a6763fb9215c2a
- https://gist.github.com/sethmlarson/52398e33eff261329a0180ac1d54f42f
- https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/19de092debb3d7e832e5672cc2f7b788d35951da
- https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/aa9eb5f757ceff461e6e996f12c89e5d9b583b01
- https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/28463dba112af719df1e8b0391c46787ad756dd9
- https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/4633f3f497b1ff70e4a35b6fe2c907cbe2d4cb2e
- https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/9c1110ef6652687d7c55f590f909720eddde965a
- https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/dd8f187d0746da151e0025c51680979ac5b4cfb1
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