REDHAT-BUG-2481315: High severity Perl Archive::Tar vulnerability

Published May 26, 2026
·
Updated

Archive::Tar versions before 3.10 for Perl allow memory exhaustion via attacker controlled entry size field in tar header.

readtar() reads each entry's payload with $handle->read($$data, $block), where $block is derived from the entry's 12-byte size field in the tar header with no upper bound on that value.

A crafted header declaring a multi-gigabyte size causes Perl to allocate a scalar of that size.

Affected Software

1 affected component
Perl Archive::Tar<3.10

Remediation

Recommended actions to resolve this vulnerability, in priority order.

  1. Upgrade

    Upgrade Perl Archive::Tar to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Fixed in 3.10
  2. Compensating control

    Apply a compensating control by preventing untrusted tar archives from being processed by Perl/Archive::Tar (e.g., restrict who can supply uploads/inputs and/or isolate the extraction process) to mitigate memory exhaustion from attacker-controlled 12-byte tar header size fields.

Event History

May 26, 2026
Data Sourced
via Red Hat·02:01 AM
DescriptionSeverityAffected Software
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