StackPrism

npm package

tar 5.0.6 vulnerabilities, and the version that fixes all of them

tar 5.0.6 has 17 known vulnerabilities (13 rated high or critical); 7.5.21 fixes all of them. The maintainers deprecated this release.

npm (opens in a new tab) describes it as “tar for node”

Known vulnerabilities
17
13 rated high or critical
Released
Jul 23, 2021
Latest is 7.5.22
Downloads last week
26
Under 1% of tar downloads
Licence
BlueOak-1.0.0
OpenSSF Scorecard
6.2/10
npm/node-tar (opens in a new tab)
Pulls in
7 packages
Resolved by deps.dev
Status
Deprecated release

What to upgrade to

7.5.21 is the closest release with no known vulnerabilities.

  • 5.0.11

    Newest 5.x release. Released Aug 19, 2021.

    13 known vulnerabilities, worst rated warningDeprecated

  • 7.5.21Upgrade to this

    Fixes all 17 known vulnerabilities. Released Jul 21, 2026.

    No known vulnerabilities

  • 7.5.22

    Latest release. Released Jul 24, 2026.

    No known vulnerabilities

7.5.21 came out on Jul 21, 2026. A coding agent trained before then doesn’t know it exists, so it may suggest an older release. AI knowledge cutoff dates

Hand the fix to your coding agent

One task with the upgrade, the file to change and why. Paste it into Claude Code, Cursor or Codex.

Findings

Every advisory for tar 5.0.6

Known exploited first (CISA KEV), then by how likely they are to be exploited (FIRST EPSS), then by severity. Each id links to its OSV.dev record.

  1. CriticalCVE-2021-32803 on OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)GHSA-r628-mhmh-qjhwEPSS: top 6%

    Arbitrary File Creation/Overwrite via insufficient symlink protection due to directory cache poisoning

    Fixed in 5.0.7. Published Aug 3, 2021.

  2. CriticalCVE-2021-37701 on OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)GHSA-9r2w-394v-53qcEPSS: top 12%

    Arbitrary File Creation/Overwrite via insufficient symlink protection due to directory cache poisoning using symbolic links

    Fixed in 5.0.8. Published Aug 31, 2021.

  3. CriticalCVE-2021-37712 on OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)GHSA-qq89-hq3f-393pEPSS: top 22%

    Arbitrary File Creation/Overwrite via insufficient symlink protection due to directory cache poisoning using symbolic links

    Fixed in 5.0.10. Published Aug 31, 2021.

  4. CriticalCVE-2021-37713 on OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)GHSA-5955-9wpr-37jhEPSS: top 31%

    Arbitrary File Creation/Overwrite on Windows via insufficient relative path sanitization

    Fixed in 5.0.10. Published Aug 31, 2021.

  5. WarningCVE-2024-28863 on OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)GHSA-f5x3-32g6-xq36EPSS: top 41%

    Denial of service while parsing a tar file due to lack of folders count validation

    Fixed in 6.2.1. Published Mar 22, 2024.

  6. WarningCVE-2026-59871 on OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)GHSA-w8wr-v893-vjvpEPSS: top 51%

    node-tar: Process crash via PAX numeric path type confusion

    Fixed in 7.5.18. Published Jul 20, 2026.

  7. CriticalCVE-2026-24842 on OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)GHSA-34x7-hfp2-rc4vEPSS: top 52%

    node-tar Vulnerable to Arbitrary File Creation/Overwrite via Hardlink Path Traversal

    Fixed in 7.5.7. Published Jan 28, 2026.

  8. CriticalCVE-2026-59873 on OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)GHSA-23hp-3jrh-7fpwEPSS: top 54%

    node-tar: Decompression/parse DoS via unlimited input

    Fixed in 7.5.19. Published Jul 20, 2026.

  9. CriticalCVE-2026-73566 on OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)GHSA-r292-9mhp-454mEPSS: top 57%

    node-tar: Uncontrolled recursion in mapHas/filesFilter allows uncatchable stack-overflow DoS via crafted long-path tar with member selection

    Fixed in 7.5.21. Published Jul 24, 2026.

  10. WarningCVE-2026-59875 on OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)GHSA-gvwx-54wh-qm9jEPSS: top 59%

    node-tar: Uncaught Exception DoS via NUL byte in PAX path/linkpath records

    Fixed in 7.5.17. Published Jul 20, 2026.

  11. CriticalCVE-2026-59874 on OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)GHSA-8x88-c5mf-7j5wEPSS: top 64%

    node-tar: Negative tar entry size causes infinite loop in archive replace

    Fixed in 7.5.18. Published Jul 20, 2026.

  12. CriticalCVE-2026-29786 on OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)GHSA-qffp-2rhf-9h96EPSS: top 68%

    tar has Hardlink Path Traversal via Drive-Relative Linkpath

    Fixed in 7.5.10. Published Mar 5, 2026.

  13. CriticalCVE-2026-23745 on OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)GHSA-8qq5-rm4j-mr97EPSS: top 71%

    node-tar is Vulnerable to Arbitrary File Overwrite and Symlink Poisoning via Insufficient Path Sanitization

    Fixed in 7.5.3. Published Jan 16, 2026.

  14. CriticalCVE-2026-23950 on OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)GHSA-r6q2-hw4h-h46wEPSS: top 83%

    Race Condition in node-tar Path Reservations via Unicode Ligature Collisions on macOS APFS

    Fixed in 7.5.4. Published Jan 21, 2026.

  15. CriticalCVE-2026-26960 on OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)GHSA-83g3-92jg-28cxEPSS: top 90%

    Arbitrary File Read/Write via Hardlink Target Escape Through Symlink Chain in node-tar Extraction

    Fixed in 7.5.8. Published Feb 18, 2026.

  16. CriticalCVE-2026-31802 on OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)GHSA-9ppj-qmqm-q256EPSS: top 92%

    node-tar Symlink Path Traversal via Drive-Relative Linkpath

    Fixed in 7.5.11. Published Mar 10, 2026.

  17. WarningCVE-2026-53655 on OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)GHSA-vmf3-w455-68vhEPSS: top 96%

    node-tar applies PAX size override to intermediary GNU long-name/long-link headers, causing tar parser interpretation differential (file smuggling)

    Fixed in 7.5.16. Published Jun 15, 2026.

Who is still on a vulnerable tar

57% of last week’s 90.2M tar downloads went to versions with known vulnerabilities.

From npm’s per-version download counts for the last 7 days, each version checked against OSV.dev. The versions checked cover over 99% of downloads.

Is tar the only one?

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How this page is checked

StackPrism asks OSV.dev which advisories affect exactly tar 5.0.6, merges duplicates filed under several ids, and ranks them with CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list and FIRST EPSS. Release dates and deprecation come from deps.dev and npm. No AI writes this page: every sentence comes from that data, refreshed every few hours.

Last checked against npm, OSV.dev, deps.dev, CISA KEV and FIRST EPSS.