CVE-2026-79655Sos: sos: path traversal in sos clean tar extraction via unvalidated symlink/hardlink targets leads to arbitrary file write
- 7.8HighCVSS base score
- 0.26%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 82% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- YesPublic exploitsa reference or SSVC says so
Description
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.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. A reference of the record is tagged as an exploit. CISA's SSVC rates its exploitation: a proof of concept is public.
Show the exploits1
References tagged exploit1 reference
Timeline
ID reserved
By redhat
Published
- 3 months later
· 3 months later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| redhatCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | High7.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Awaiting Analysis | 3.1 | High7.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.26% · top 82% of all CVEs (12 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: poc · Automatable: no · Technical impact: total
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 7.8.
Affected products
Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
- unaffected 0:4.11.2-7.el10_3 – < *
Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
- unaffected 0:4.11.2-7.el9_9 – < *
Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
All versions: unknown
Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
All versions: unaffected
Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
All versions: affected
What to do
Workaround: 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.
References
References6
- RHSA-2026:97867 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_REDHAT
- RHSA-2026:98076 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_REDHAT
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-79655 (opens in a new tab)vdb-entryx_refsource_REDHAT
- RHBZ#2523363 (opens in a new tab)issue-trackingx_refsource_REDHAT
- https://github.com/sosreport/sos/issues/4460 (opens in a new tab)exploit
- https://github.com/sosreport/sos/pull/4461 (opens in a new tab)
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2026-65492 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2026-79655)Record last updated .