CVE-2026-23949: jaraco.context Has a Path Traversal Vulnerability

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-23949 is a high (CVSS 8.6) vulnerability in jaraco jaraco.context. EPSS estimates a 0.63% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 50.3% of scored vulnerabilities. 1 public exploit is recorded.

Timeline

1. 20-01-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 20-01-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

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.

• CWE-22Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted DirectoryThe product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory.