CVE-2026-59871 node-tar: Process crash via PAX numeric path type confusion
An attacker can crash the application by providing a tar archive with numeric PAX paths, causing an uncaught TypeError in the node-tar library.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-59871?
CVE-2026-59871 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in isaacs node-tar, published on 8 Jul 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
node-tar is a tar archive manipulation library for Node.js. Prior to 7.5.18, node-tar coerces all-digit PAX path and linkpath values in src/pax.ts to JavaScript numbers, causing downstream path handling such as normalizeWindowsPath(entry.path).split('/') to throw an uncaught TypeError. This issue is fixed in version 7.5.18.
Weakness: CWE-704
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-59871?
2 open source packages ship an affected version, including tar. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
tar npm | All versions | 7.5.18 |
tar npm | All versions | 7.5.18 |
Products include Isaacs Tar.
How do I fix CVE-2026-59871?
Upgrade tar to 7.5.18 or later.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2026-59871 being exploited?
It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2026-59871 exists.
Other vulnerabilities in isaacs node-tar
- CVE-2026-59873 node-tar: Decompression/parse DoS via unlimited input
- CVE-2026-23950 node-tar has Race Condition in Path Reservations via Unicode Ligature Collisions on macOS APFS
- CVE-2026-59874 node-tar: Negative tar entry size causes infinite loop in archive replace
- CVE-2026-31802 node-tar Symlink Path Traversal via Drive-Relative Linkpath
- CVE-2026-29786 node-tar: Hardlink Path Traversal via Drive-Relative Linkpath
Sources
Also known as CLEANSTART-2026-OD75176, CLEANSTART-2026-VH65256, CLEANSTART-2026-XO33315, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-59871, ECHO-6efb-ad73-64a1, GHSA-w8wr-v893-vjvp and 33 more.