Red Hat Ansible Core Archive Extractor symlink

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical was found in Red Hat Ansible Core. This affects an unknown function of the component Archive Extractor. The manipulation results in symlink. This vulnerability is reported as CVE-2026-89091. The attack can be launched remotely. No exploit exists.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, was found in Red Hat Ansible Core (version unknown). Affected is an unknown function of the component Archive Extractor. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a symlink vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-61. The product, when opening a file or directory, does not sufficiently account for when the file is a symbolic link that resolves to a target outside of the intended control sphere. This could allow an attacker to cause the product to operate on unauthorized files. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

A flaw was found in ansible-core. When installing a collection with `ansible-galaxy collection install`, the archive extractor validates member paths using lexical path normalisation (os.path.abspath) instead of resolving symbolic links (os.path.realpath), and it performs no containment check on symlink-typed directory members before creating them. A crafted collection tarball can chain symlink directory entries so that a subsequent file member is written outside the intended destination directory. This allows an attacker who can get a victim to install a malicious collection to overwrite arbitrary files with the privileges of the user running ansible-galaxy, leading to code execution on the control node. This is a bypass of the fix for CVE-2020-10691.

The advisory is shared for download at access.redhat.com. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2026-89091 since 09/10/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. It is possible to launch the attack remotely. The exploitation doesn't require any form of authentication. Successful exploitation requires user interaction by the victim. 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 10/09/2026).

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

Vendor

• Red Hat

Name

• Ansible Core

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.redhat.com/

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