CVE-2026-24846

malcontent's archive extraction could write outside extraction directory

State: Published
Severity: 5.5 Medium
Published: Jan 29, 2026
Updated: Jan 29, 2026
Reserved: Jan 27, 2026

Description

malcontent discovers supply-chain compromises through. context, differential analysis, and YARA. Starting in version 1.8.0 and prior to version 1.20.3, malcontent could be made to create symlinks outside the intended extraction directory when scanning a specially crafted tar or deb archive. The `handleSymlink` function received arguments in the wrong order, causing the symlink target to be used as the symlink location. Additionally, symlink targets were not validated to ensure they resolved within the extraction directory. Version 1.20.3 introduces fixes that swap handleSymlink arguments, validate symlink location, and validate symlink targets that resolve within an extraction directory.

Scores

CVSS	Score	Vector	Source
3.1	5.5 Medium	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N	GitHub_M

Weaknesses

CWE-22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')
CWE-683 Function Call With Incorrect Order of Arguments

Affected Products

Product	Versions
malcontentchainguard-dev	>= 1.8.0, < 1.20.3Affected

References

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