CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2023-38346 — An issue was discovered in Wind River VxWorks 6.9 and 7

High CVSS 8.8

An issue was discovered in Wind River VxWorks 6.9 and 7. The function ``tarExtract`` implements TAR file extraction and thereby also processes files within an archive that have relative or absolute file paths. A developer using the "tarExtract" function may expect that the function will strip leading slashes from absolute paths or stop processing when encountering relative paths that are outside of the extraction path, unless otherwise forced. This could lead to unexpected and undocumented behavior, which in general could result in a directory traversal, and associated unexpected behavior.

Severity
High
CVSS
8.8 (3.1)
Published
2023-09-22
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
operating-system
Weaknesses
CWE-22

Affected products

  • windriver / vxworks / 6.9
  • windriver / vxworks / 7.0

Matched remediation archetype

Path traversal, unsafe upload, and file handling

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Trace untrusted filenames, archive entries, URLs, and path segments into read, write, include, extraction, and upload operations.
  • Identify filesystem roots, mount permissions, symbolic-link behavior, archive handling, and whether uploaded content is web-accessible or executable.
  • Review canonicalization and containment checks across supported operating systems and storage backends.

Remediate safely

  • Generate server-side storage identifiers and resolve paths beneath a fixed root using filesystem-aware containment checks.
  • Reject absolute, parent-relative, alternate-separator, device, link, and archive entries that escape the intended root.
  • Store uploads outside executable or served paths, validate type and size, and use private atomic temporary files.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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