GHSA-RR8V-FXXF-C986

Vulnerability from github – Published: 2026-11-09 21:48 – Updated: 2026-11-09 21:48
VLAI
Summary
Gradle Shadow: Zip Slip path traversal in ShadowCopyAction — no independent entry-name sanitization
Details

Summary

ShadowCopyAction in the Shadow plugin does not validate or sanitize ZIP entry names before writing them to the output fat JAR. A malicious upstream dependency containing path traversal sequences (e.g. ../../../../tmp/pwned.txt) in entry names will have those entries reproduced verbatim in the output shadow JAR.

Details

The vulnerability exists because Shadow relies entirely on Gradle's ZipFileTree for entry sanitization rather than implementing its own path validation. This means:

  1. Users on Gradle < 7.6.2 / 8.x < 8.2.0 are directly exploitable
  2. The produced shadow JAR becomes a Zip Slip weapon against any downstream consumer using unprotected extraction (raw ZipInputStream, older CI tooling, custom Java unpackers)
  3. If Shadow ever uses a non-ZipFileTree code path, protection disappears silently

Affected file: src/main/kotlin/com/github/jengelman/gradle/plugins/shadow/internal/ShadowCopyAction.kt

PoC

  1. Create a malicious JAR with path traversal entry:
import zipfile
with zipfile.ZipFile('evil.jar', 'w') as zf:
    zf.writestr('../../../../tmp/zipslip_proof.txt', 'pwned')
  1. Add as dependency in a shadow project
  2. Run gradle shadowJar
  3. Run unzip -l build/libs/*.jar | grep "\.\."
  4. Traversal entry survives in output JAR

Impact

Any tool extracting the shadow JAR with unprotected extraction is subject to arbitrary file overwrite. Users on older Gradle versions are directly vulnerable at build time.

Severity
8.1 (High)
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
Show details on source website
To clipboard 

{
  "affected": [
    {
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Maven",
        "name": "com.gradleup.shadow:com.gradleup.shadow.gradle.plugin"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "9.6.0"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "aliases": [
    "CVE-2026-75598"
  ],
  "database_specific": {
    "cwe_ids": [
      "CWE-22"
    ],
    "github_reviewed": true,
    "github_reviewed_at": "2026-11-09T21:48:13Z",
    "nvd_published_at": "2026-11-06T18:18:18Z",
    "severity": "HIGH"
  },
  "details": "### Summary\nShadowCopyAction in the Shadow plugin does not validate or sanitize ZIP entry names before writing them to the output fat JAR. A malicious upstream dependency containing path traversal sequences (e.g. `../../../../tmp/pwned.txt`) in entry names will have those entries reproduced verbatim in the output shadow JAR.\n\n### Details\nThe vulnerability exists because Shadow relies entirely on Gradle\u0027s ZipFileTree for entry sanitization rather than implementing its own path validation. This means:\n\n1. Users on Gradle \u003c 7.6.2 / 8.x \u003c 8.2.0 are directly exploitable\n2. The produced shadow JAR becomes a Zip Slip weapon against any \ndownstream consumer using unprotected extraction (raw ZipInputStream, \nolder CI tooling, custom Java unpackers)\n3. If Shadow ever uses a non-ZipFileTree code path, protection \ndisappears silently\n\nAffected file: `src/main/kotlin/com/github/jengelman/gradle/plugins/shadow/internal/ShadowCopyAction.kt`\n\n### PoC\n1. Create a malicious JAR with path traversal entry:\n```python\nimport zipfile\nwith zipfile.ZipFile(\u0027evil.jar\u0027, \u0027w\u0027) as zf:\n    zf.writestr(\u0027../../../../tmp/zipslip_proof.txt\u0027, \u0027pwned\u0027)\n```\n2. Add as dependency in a shadow project\n3. Run `gradle shadowJar`\n4. Run `unzip -l build/libs/*.jar | grep \"\\.\\.\"`\n5. Traversal entry survives in output JAR\n\n### Impact\nAny tool extracting the shadow JAR with unprotected extraction is subject to arbitrary file overwrite. Users on older Gradle versions  are directly vulnerable at build time.",
  "id": "GHSA-rr8v-fxxf-c986",
  "modified": "2026-11-09T21:48:13Z",
  "published": "2026-11-09T21:48:13Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/GradleUp/shadow/security/advisories/GHSA-rr8v-fxxf-c986"
    },
    {
      "type": "ADVISORY",
      "url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-75598"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/GradleUp/shadow/commit/0c2744fcc050e34a084f5131d5e167b13c342bfd"
    },
    {
      "type": "PACKAGE",
      "url": "https://github.com/GradleUp/shadow"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/GradleUp/shadow/releases/tag/9.6.0"
    }
  ],
  "schema_version": "1.4.0",
  "severity": [
    {
      "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H",
      "type": "CVSS_V3"
    }
  ],
  "summary": "Gradle Shadow: Zip Slip path traversal in ShadowCopyAction \u2014 no independent entry-name sanitization"
}



Log in or create an account to share your comment.




Tags
Taxonomy of the tags.




Drag nodes to arrange them. Double-click a related vulnerability to open it, or a source to visit its link. The Physics button on the left tunes the layout and the simulation; the legend at the bottom left hides or shows nodes by kind and by sighting type.

Forecast uses a logistic model when the trend is rising, or an exponential decay model when the trend is falling. Fitted via linearized least squares.

Sightings

Author Source Type Date Other

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.
Vulnerability timeline

Sightings and recorded dates, grouped by day · UTC

JSON
How durations are calculated

Following the VTEM framework (Black Hat USA 2015), time to patch starts when the vendor or a coordinator was informed, total time to patch at discovery, and disclosure to patch at public disclosure; vendor response time runs from the report to its acknowledgement. Time to exploit and time unpatched start at the earliest discovery or report, falling back to public disclosure. Unpatched time ends at the first recorded patch, or the calculation time when no patch is recorded. Exploitation to patch shows the interval between those two events; a published proof of concept is a public exploit, not exploitation.

Each result shows its source dates. A negative interval means the end event came first; when date-only inputs leave the order open, the result says so. Date-only inputs are approximate. The earliest evidence wins: KEV report dates and sightings are labelled as such. Records describing another vulnerability are listed but never calculated from, and a PoC alone does not establish exploitation. Missing patch evidence does not prove that no patch exists. Filters below change the event list only.

Loading timeline…




    Related by attack behaviour

    Vulnerabilities whose description is nearest to this one in the vector space of the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-biencoder model. This is a similarity search over the bi-encoder space (plain cosine), not a classification, and it has no measured accuracy.