Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
Rust applications using the tar crate before 0.4.36 may handle symlink-containing TAR archives unsafely. A malicious archive can cause directory creation outside the intended extraction location through parent-directory traversal. Business urgency depends on whether the application extracts untrusted archives.
Executive priority
Prioritize if the organization runs Rust software that extracts external archives. For systems without untrusted TAR extraction, urgency is lower, but dependency remediation is still appropriate because the affected version boundary is clear.
Technical view
CVE-2021-38511 affects the Rust tar crate before 0.4.36. When symlinks are present in a TAR archive, extraction can create arbitrary directories through .. traversal. The source bundle does not provide CVSS, CWE, broad product mappings, or evidence of active exploitation.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely in Rust services, tools, or build pipelines that depend on tar before 0.4.36 and extract TAR archives from users, partners, CI artifacts, or other untrusted sources.
Exploitation context
The provided sources do not claim active exploitation, and the CVE is not marked as KEV. The known prerequisite is processing a crafted TAR archive with symlink-related traversal behavior. Evidence in the bundle names arbitrary directory creation, not broader code execution.
Researcher notes
The public record is narrow: affected crate, fixed version boundary, and vulnerability behavior are provided, but severity scoring and exploitation details are absent. Assess practical risk by tracing archive sources, extraction destinations, and privilege context.
Mitigation direction
- Upgrade the Rust tar crate to version 0.4.36 or later.
- Review Cargo manifests and lockfiles for direct or transitive tar dependencies.
- Avoid extracting untrusted TAR archives until affected dependencies are updated.
- Check RustSec and CVE guidance for any additional vendor recommendations.
Validation and detection
- Confirm all deployed builds use tar 0.4.36 or later.
- Identify code paths that extract TAR archives from untrusted inputs.
- Verify archive extraction is constrained to the intended destination directory.
- Add regression tests for symlink and parent-directory traversal handling.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CVE-2021-38511 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Unknown
- CVSS
- Not scored
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS and timeline data
No CVSS vectors or timeline events were available in the normalized CVE source material.
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2021-0080.htmlCVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rustsec/advisory-db/main/crates/tar/RUSTSEC-2021-0080.mdCVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.