CVE-2023-37478Public exploitNetwork attack vector

Malicious package substitution via first-record tar extraction

Published Aug 1, 2023 · Updated Oct 10, 2024

Improper tar parsing in pnpm before 7.33.4 and 8.0.0 through 8.6.7 allows attackers to substitute malicious package content. During tar-stream extraction, pnpm strips the first path component, keeps the first file for a resulting duplicate name, and discards later records instead of honoring the TAR specification's last record. A crafted package tarball can therefore show benign metadata to npm or a registry while pnpm installs attacker-selected files, compromising dependencies for projects or CI jobs that install it.

CVSS severity7.5
High
EPSS probability1.21%
Next 30 days · Sep 16, 2026
Known exploitationUnconfirmed
Based on sourced intelligence
Hinoki checkNot available
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Summary

What happened

Improper tar parsing in pnpm before 7.33.4 and 8.0.0 through 8.6.7 allows attackers to substitute malicious package content. During tar-stream extraction, pnpm strips the first path component, keeps the first file for a resulting duplicate name, and discards later records instead of honoring the TAR specification's last record. A crafted package tarball can therefore show benign metadata to npm or a registry while pnpm installs attacker-selected files, compromising dependencies for projects or CI jobs that install it.

The record

CVE
CVE-2023-37478
Published
Aug 1, 2023
Updated
Oct 10, 2024
Vendor
pnpm
Product
pnpm
Classifications
CWE-284, T1195.001
Attack vector
network
Privileges
authenticated

Timeline

How it unfolded

  1. Aug 1, 2023CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
  2. Oct 10, 2024Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.

Exploitability

Present is not the same as exploitable

Compare your product and version with the public record. A matching version still requires validation against your environment.

Is a vulnerable build present?

Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.

  1. Affected versionversion=0 <7.33.4
  2. Affected versionversion=< 7.33.4
  3. Affected versionversion=>= 8.0.0, < 8.6.8
  4. Affected versionversion=8.0.0 <8.6.8

What conditions does exploitation require?

Attack vectornetwork
Required privilegesauthenticated

What is affected?

pnpm · pnpmversion=0 <7.33.4; version=< 7.33.4; version=>= 8.0.0, < 8.6.8; version=8.0.0 <8.6.8

Published CVSS scores

9.8NIST NVDCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
7.5GitHubCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.

Attacks

What attackers are doing with it

Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.

Daily unique IPsNo honeypot observations are available for this CVE in the selected window.

No observations available

Sep 10, 2026Sep 16, 2026
Latest reporting daySep 16, 2026
Latest daily unique IPsUnavailable
Prior 30-day averageUnavailable
SourceShadowserver honeypots (KEV)
Vectornetwork
Privilegesauthenticated
Known exploitationUnconfirmed
Public exploitPublished

Weakness, pattern, technique

CWE-284Improper Access Control
T1195.001Compromise Software Dependencies and Development Tools

Public exploit references

Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.

Technologies

Your stack

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Your stack

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