High [CVE-2026-79655] Sos: sos: path traversal in sos clean tar extraction via unvalidated symlink/hardlink targets leads to arbitrary file write
This high-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-79655 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.
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Summary
A flaw was found in sos clean, a utility within the sos package. This vulnerability allows a local attacker to perform arbitrary file creation or overwrite.
By crafting a malicious tar archive, an attacker can exploit a path traversal issue during tar extraction, where symlink and hardlink targets are not properly validated. This enables the attacker to write files to arbitrary locations on the system with the privileges of the sos clean process, which often runs as root.
Red Hat severity: Important — CVSS 7.8 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H). Weakness: CWE-59.
Affected Red Hat products: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9. Will not fix / out of support: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
Red Hat does not currently list a fixing RHSA for this CVE.
Affected products named by the advisory: Red Hat package: sos.src; Red Hat package: sos-audit.
Affected versions
No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative — check it before change work.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 55 minutes ago·verify at source
Fixed versions
No fixed release is recorded yet. That does not prove no patch exists — confirm against the vendor advisory.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 55 minutes ago·verify at source
Mitigation checklist
- To mitigate this issue, avoid using the `sos clean` utility to extract tar archives from untrusted or unknown sources. This vulnerability requires user interaction to process a specially crafted archive.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 55 minutes ago·verify at source
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