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CVE-2026-90954

Full vulnerability record from the local CVENow database.

Description

A flaw was found in BusyBox's dpkg-deb archive extraction. The ar archive handler flushes deferred symlinks after each archive member, unlike the tar, cpio, and unzip handlers which flush once after the last member. A specially crafted .deb archive with two data.tar members can exploit this ordering: the first member declares a symlink pointing to an absolute path (e.g., '/'), which is deferred as unsafe but flushed after the first member. The second member declares a regular file whose path traverses the now-live symlink, resulting in a file being written outside the intended extraction directory. This could allow an attacker to write arbitrary files to arbitrary locations when a user extracts a crafted .deb package.

Severity
HIGH
CVSS score
7.8 (v3.1)
Vulnerability status
Awaiting Analysis
Source identifier
Published
2026-10-14 10:17:57.297000
Last modified
2026-10-19 20:21:10.970000
View original CVE JSON
{
  "id": "CVE-2026-90954",
  "sourceIdentifier": "[email protected]",
  "published": "2026-10-14T10:17:57.297",
  "lastModified": "2026-10-19T20:21:10.970",
  "vulnStatus": "Awaiting Analysis",
  "cveTags": [],
  "descriptions": [
    {
      "lang": "en",
      "value": "A flaw was found in BusyBox's dpkg-deb archive extraction. The ar archive handler flushes deferred symlinks after each archive member, unlike the tar, cpio, and unzip handlers which flush once after the last member. A specially crafted .deb archive with two data.tar members can exploit this ordering: the first member declares a symlink pointing to an absolute path (e.g., '/'), which is deferred as unsafe but flushed after the first member. The second member declares a regular file whose path traverses the now-live symlink, resulting in a file being written outside the intended extraction directory. This could allow an attacker to write arbitrary files to arbitrary locations when a user extracts a crafted .deb package."
    }
  ],
  "affected": [
    {
      "source": "[email protected]",
      "affectedData": [
        {
          "vendor": "Red Hat",
          "product": "Red Hat Hardened Images",
          "defaultStatus": "affected",
          "collectionURL": "https://access.redhat.com/downloads/content/package-browser/",
          "packageName": "busybox",
          "cpes": [
            "cpe:/a:redhat:hummingbird:1"
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "metrics": {
    "cvssMetricV31": [
      {
        "source": "[email protected]",
        "type": "Secondary",
        "cvssData": {
          "version": "3.1",
          "vectorString": "CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H",
          "baseScore": 7.8,
          "baseSeverity": "HIGH",
          "attackVector": "LOCAL",
          "attackComplexity": "LOW",
          "privilegesRequired": "NONE",
          "userInteraction": "REQUIRED",
          "scope": "UNCHANGED",
          "confidentialityImpact": "HIGH",
          "integrityImpact": "HIGH",
          "availabilityImpact": "HIGH"
        },
        "exploitabilityScore": 1.8,
        "impactScore": 5.9
      }
    ],
    "ssvcV203": [
      {
        "source": "134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0",
        "ssvcData": {
          "timestamp": "2026-10-19T19:04:23.866850Z",
          "id": "CVE-2026-90954",
          "options": [
            {
              "exploitation": "none"
            },
            {
              "automatable": "no"
            },
            {
              "technicalImpact": "total"
            }
          ],
          "role": "CISA Coordinator",
          "version": "2.0.3"
        }
      }
    ]
  },
  "weaknesses": [
    {
      "source": "[email protected]",
      "type": "Secondary",
      "description": [
        {
          "lang": "en",
          "value": "CWE-59"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "references": [
    {
      "url": "https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-90954",
      "source": "[email protected]"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2533007",
      "source": "[email protected]"
    }
  ]
}