jaraco jaraco.context up to 6.0.x jaraco.context.tarball path traversal

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in jaraco jaraco.context up to 6.0.x. It has been rated as critical. This affects the function jaraco.context.tarball. The manipulation leads to path traversal. This vulnerability is referenced as CVE-2026-23949. Remote exploitation of the attack is possible. No exploit is available. Upgrading the affected component is advised.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in jaraco jaraco.context up to 6.0.x and classified as critical. This issue affects the function jaraco.context.tarball. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a path traversal vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-22. The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory. Impacted is confidentiality. The summary by CVE is:

jaraco.context, an open-source software package that provides some useful decorators and context managers, has a Zip Slip path traversal vulnerability in the `jaraco.context.tarball()` function starting in version 5.2.0 and prior to version 6.1.0. The vulnerability may allow attackers to extract files outside the intended extraction directory when malicious tar archives are processed. The strip_first_component filter splits the path on the first `/` and extracts the second component, while allowing `../` sequences. Paths like `dummy_dir/../../etc/passwd` become `../../etc/passwd`. Note that this suffers from a nested tarball attack as well with multi-level tar files such as `dummy_dir/inner.tar.gz`, where the inner.tar.gz includes a traversal `dummy_dir/../../config/.env` that also gets translated to `../../config/.env`. Version 6.1.0 contains a patch for the issue.

It is possible to read the advisory at github.com. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-23949 since 01/19/2026. The exploitation is known to be easy. The attack may be initiated remotely. No form of authentication is needed for a successful exploitation. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit. The attack technique deployed by this issue is T1006 according to MITRE ATT&CK.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 296557 (openSUSE 16 Security Update : python-jaraco.context (openSUSE-SU-2026:20095-1)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 6.1.0 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 7b26a42b525735e4085d2e994e13802ea339d5f9 is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at github.com. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (296557) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2026-1730). Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

Affected

• Xerox FreeFlow Print Server

Productinfo

Vendor

• jaraco

Name

• jaraco.context

Version

• 6.0

License

• open-source

Website

• Product: https://github.com/jaraco/jaraco.context/

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Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

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