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.

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Fixes

Solution

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Workaround

Do not use BusyBox dpkg-deb to extract untrusted .deb packages. Use Debian's reference dpkg-deb implementation, which treats the extraction root as a boundary and is not affected by this issue. If BusyBox dpkg-deb must be used, inspect .deb archives for multiple data.tar members before extraction (legitimate .deb packages contain exactly one data.tar member).

History

Wed, 14 Oct 2026 12:15:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
References
Metrics threat_severity

None

threat_severity

Important


Wed, 14 Oct 2026 10:15:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
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.
Title Busybox: busybox: dpkg-deb extraction-root escape via per-ar-member deferred symlink flush
First Time appeared Redhat
Redhat hummingbird
Weaknesses CWE-59
CPEs cpe:/a:redhat:hummingbird:1
Vendors & Products Redhat
Redhat hummingbird
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 7.8, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H'}


Projects

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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: redhat

Published:

Updated: 2026-10-14T10:00:08.215Z

Reserved: 2026-09-14T11:58:18.067Z

Link: CVE-2026-90954

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-10-14T10:17:57.297

Modified: 2026-10-14T10:17:57.297

Link: CVE-2026-90954

cve-icon Redhat

Severity : Important

Publid Date: 2026-10-14T08:00:00Z

Links: CVE-2026-90954 - Bugzilla

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

Updated: 2026-10-14T16:00:04Z

Weaknesses