GNU tar 1.16 and 1.15.1, and possibly other versions, allows user-assisted attackers to overwrite arbitrary files via a tar file that contains a GNUTYPE_NAMES record with a symbolic link, which is not properly handled by the extract_archive function in extract.c and extract_mangle function in mangle.c, a variant of CVE-2002-1216.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2006-6097 is rated High Exploit Risk (68.3/100): CVSS Medium severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 10.44%, 93th percentile). Core evidence: 4 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). EPSS rose +4.80% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Mandatory action: Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.
Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.
| EDB-ID | Source | Kind | Published | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29160 | exploit_db | edb | 2006-11-21 | Exploit-DB ↗ |
| — | nvd_ref | exploit_tag | Exploit-DB ↗ | |
| — | nvd_ref | exploit_tag | Exploit-DB ↗ | |
| — | nvd_ref | exploit_tag | Exploit-DB ↗ |
EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).
| # | Date | Old EPSS score | New EPSS score | Delta (New - Old) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2025-12-24 | 5.64% | 10.44% | +4.80% |
| 2 | 2025-11-09 | 7.52% | 5.64% | -1.88% |
| 3 | 2025-10-27 | — | 7.52% | — |
Full EPSS history (20 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.0 | 2.0 | MEDIUM |
|
4.9 | 4.9 | [email protected] |
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
alpine
|
— | CVE-2006-6097: no source package rows; 0 state rows across 0 repos (none); fixed 0, open 0. | https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2006-6097 |
debian
|
high | CVE-2006-6097 high priority: Debian including 1 source packages (tar), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. | https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2006-6097 |
gentoo
|
normal | CVE-2006-6097: 1 GLSA(s) (200612-10), 1 atom(s) (app-arch/tar); latest impact normal. | https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2006-6097 |
redhat
|
medium | — | https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2006-6097 |
suse
|
low | CVE-2006-6097 severity low: SUSE including 19 source package names (tar, tar-1.20-23.23.1, …), 45 product×package rows across 20 product lines (SUSE CaaS Platform 4.0, SUSE Enterprise Storage 7, … (20 product lines)): Known Not Affected 28, Fixed 17. | https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2006-6097/ |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2006-6097 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (tar), 4 status rows across 4 suites (dapper, edgy, feisty, upstream): released 3, needs-triage 1. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2006-6097 |
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 is not vulnerable to this issue as it contains a backported patch.