VulnerabilityPublished 21 Oct 2025

CVE-2025-62518: astral-sh tokio-tar · Type Confusion

Affects astral-sh tokio-tarSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 8.1 High : upgrade to 0.5.6 soon.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 17:16 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

8.1High

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 53% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 0.5.6

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: High
Integrity: High
Availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: High: There is total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all resources within the impacted component being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact.
Integrity: High: There is a total loss of integrity, or a complete loss of protection. For example, the attacker is able to modify any/all files protected by the impacted component. Alternatively, only some files can be modified, but malicious modification would present a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 21 Oct 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade astral-sh/tokio-tar to 0.5.6.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
crates.ioastral-sh/tokio-tar`pkg:cargo/astral-sh/tokio-tar`Other threats	Affected <0.5.6	Fixed in 0.5.6

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2025-62518, European organizations should immediately upgrade all instances of the astral-sh tokio-tar library to version 0.5.6 or later, where the vulnerability is patched. Audit all Rust projects and dependencies to identify usage of tokio-tar and ensure they are updated accordingly. Implement strict validation and sanitization of tar archives before processing, especially those originating from untrusted or external sources. Where possible, isolate archive processing in sandboxed or containerized environments to limit potential damage from malicious archives. Incorporate monitoring and alerting for unusual file extraction or modification activities related to tar archives. Educate developers and DevOps teams about the risks of processing untrusted archives and enforce policies to avoid manual processing of suspicious files. For supply chain security, verify the integrity and provenance of tar archives used in automated pipelines. Since no workarounds exist, patching remains the primary defense. Additionally, consider employing runtime application self-protection (RASP) or enhanced logging to detect exploitation attempts.

Description

astral-tokio-tar is a tar archive reading/writing library for async Rust. Versions of astral-tokio-tar prior to 0.5.6 contain a boundary parsing vulnerability that allows attackers to smuggle additional archive entries by exploiting inconsistent PAX/ustar header handling. When processing archives with PAX-extended headers containing size overrides, the parser incorrectly advances stream position based on ustar header size (often zero) instead of the PAX-specified size, causing it to interpret file content as legitimate tar headers. This issue has been patched in version 0.5.6. There are no workarounds.

Impact

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2025-62518 can be significant, especially those relying on Rust-based tooling or infrastructure that incorporates the astral-sh tokio-tar library for asynchronous tar archive processing. The vulnerability allows attackers to smuggle additional files into tar archives, potentially leading to unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information or integrity violations through overwriting or injecting malicious files. This can compromise software supply chains, automated deployment pipelines, or any system that processes tar archives from untrusted sources. Given the high confidentiality and integrity impact, organizations handling sensitive data or critical infrastructure could face data breaches or system compromise. Although availability is not directly affected, the indirect consequences of data corruption or unauthorized access could disrupt business operations. The requirement for user interaction limits automated exploitation but does not eliminate risk in environments where users or automated systems process untrusted archives. The lack of workarounds means timely patching is essential to mitigate risk. Compliance with European data protection regulations such as GDPR could also be impacted if sensitive data is exposed due to this vulnerability.

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 28 Oct 2025, 22:08 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-843

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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