Red Hat Enterprise Linux up to 10 Tar Extraction path traversal

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability classified as very critical was found in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6/7/8/9/10. This impacts an unknown function of the component Tar Extraction. The manipulation results in path traversal. This vulnerability is reported as CVE-2026-79655. The attack requires a local approach. No exploit exists.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6/7/8/9/10. It has been classified as very critical. Affected is an unknown function of the component Tar Extraction. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a path traversal vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as 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. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

A flaw was found in sos clean, a utility within the sos package. This vulnerability allows a local attacker to perform arbitrary file creation or overwrite. By crafting a malicious tar archive, an attacker can exploit a path traversal issue during tar extraction, where symlink and hardlink targets are not properly validated. This enables the attacker to write files to arbitrary locations on the system with the privileges of the sos clean process, which often runs as root.

The advisory is shared for download at access.redhat.com. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2026-79655 since 08/25/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. The attack needs to be approached locally. There are neither technical details nor an exploit publicly available. The current price for an exploit might be approx. USD $5k-$25k (estimation calculated on 08/25/2026). The MITRE ATT&CK project declares the attack technique as T1006.

There is no information about possible countermeasures known. It may be suggested to replace the affected object with an alternative product.

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Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Red Hat

Name

• Enterprise Linux

Version

• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.redhat.com/

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