High severity · published Jan 20, 2026
CVE-2026-23949
jaraco.context Has a Path Traversal Vulnerability
8.6
CVSS
0.6%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
jaraco.context, an open-source software package that provides some useful decorators and context managers, has a Zip Slip path traversal vulnerability in the `jaraco.context.tarball()` function starting in version 5.2.0 and prior to version 6.1.0. The vulnerability may allow attackers to extract files outside the intended extraction directory when malicious tar archives are processed. The strip_first_component filter splits the path on the first `/` and extracts the second component, while allowing `../` sequences. Paths like `dummy_dir/../../etc/passwd` become `../../etc/passwd`. Note that this suffers from a nested tarball attack as well with multi-level tar files such as `dummy_dir/inner.tar.gz`, where the inner.tar.gz includes a traversal `dummy_dir/../../config/.env` that also gets translated to `../../config/.env`. Version 6.1.0 contains a patch for the issue.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None
Scope
Changed
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.6% · higher than 50% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
JA
jaraco.context · jaraco
>= 5.2.0, < 6.1.0 · source: vendor, NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-23949
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-23949
Patch
https://github.com/jaraco/jaraco.context/blob/main/jaraco/context/__init__.py#L74-L91
Patch
https://github.com/jaraco/jaraco.context/commit/7b26a42b525735e4085d2e994e13802ea339d5f9
Exploit
https://github.com/jaraco/jaraco.context/security/advisories/GHSA-58pv-8j8x-9vj2
Patch
https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/blob/main/setuptools/_vendor/jaraco/context.py#L55-L76
