What is CVE-2021-38511?

CVE-2021-38511 is a high-severity vulnerability in Tar Project, classified under Improper Link Resolution Before File Access. CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2021-08-10.

How severe is CVE-2021-38511?

High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.

Vulnerability in Tar Project

CVE-2021-38511

An issue was discovered in the tar crate before 0.4.36 for Rust. When symlinks are present in a TAR archive, extraction can create arbitrary directories via .. traversal.

Published 2021-08-10 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.5 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.014 (71.3th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 71st percentile — 71.3% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.014 · newest: 0.014 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Tar Project

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-59 — Improper Link Resolution Before File Access

References

rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2021-0080.html (Exploit, Third Party Advisory)
raw.githubusercontent.com/rustsec/advisory-db/main/crates/tar/RUSTSEC-2021-0080… (Exploit, Third Party Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2021-38511?: CVE-2021-38511 is a high-severity vulnerability in Tar Project, classified under Improper Link Resolution Before File Access. CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2021-08-10.
How severe is CVE-2021-38511?: High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.