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CVE-2023-52138

Path traversal via crafted cpio archives in Engrampa archivers

8.2 HighFix available

Engrampa is an archive manager for the MATE environment. Engrampa is found to be vulnerable to a Path Traversal vulnerability that can be leveraged to achieve full Remote Command Execution (RCE) on the target. While handling CPIO archives, the Engrampa Archive manager follows symlink, cpio by default will follow stored symlinks while extracting and the Archiver will not check the symlink location, which leads to arbitrary file writes to unintended locations. When the victim extracts the archive, the attacker can craft a malicious cpio or ISO archive to achieve RCE on the target system. This vulnerability was fixed in commit 63d5dfa.

Attack profile

How easy it is to exploit

Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges needed
None
User interaction
Required

What an attacker can affect

Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
High
Availability
None

Exploit likelihood

1.67%Up 1.6 points since Feb 8, 2024
90%50%10%1%

What each source reports

CVE List Score used 8.2

Path traversal via crafted cpio archives in Engrampa archivers

Engrampa is an archive manager for the MATE environment. Engrampa is found to be vulnerable to a Path Traversal vulnerability that can be leveraged to achieve full Remote Command Execution (RCE) on the target. While handling CPIO archives, the Engrampa Archive manager follows symlink, cpio by default will follow stored symlinks while extracting and the Archiver will not check the symlink location, which leads to arbitrary file writes to unintended locations. When the victim extracts the archive, the attacker can craft a malicious cpio or ISO archive to achieve RCE on the target system. This vulnerability was fixed in commit 63d5dfa.

Record
CVE-2023-52138
CVSS 3.1
8.2 HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:N
Weakness
CWE-25
Updated
2026-11-02
EUVDEUVD-2023-56811 8.2

Engrampa is an archive manager for the MATE environment. Engrampa is found to be vulnerable to a Path Traversal vulnerability that can be leveraged to achieve full Remote Command Execution (RCE) on the target. While handling CPIO archives, the Engrampa Archive manager follows symlink, cpio by default will follow stored symlinks while extracting and the Archiver will not check the symlink location, which leads to arbitrary file writes to unintended locations. When the victim extracts the archive, the attacker can craft a malicious cpio or ISO archive to achieve RCE on the target system. This vulnerability was fixed in commit 63d5dfa.

Record
EUVD-2023-56811
CVSS 3.1
8.2 HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:N
Updated
2026-11-02
NVD 8.2

Engrampa is an archive manager for the MATE environment. Engrampa is found to be vulnerable to a Path Traversal vulnerability that can be leveraged to achieve full Remote Command Execution (RCE) on the target. While handling CPIO archives, the Engrampa Archive manager follows symlink, cpio by default will follow stored symlinks while extracting and the Archiver will not check the symlink location, which leads to arbitrary file writes to unintended locations. When the victim extracts the archive, the attacker can craft a malicious cpio or ISO archive to achieve RCE on the target system. This vulnerability was fixed in commit 63d5dfa.

Record
CVE-2023-52138
CVSS 3.1
8.2 HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:N
CVSS 3.1
9.6 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness
CWE-25, CWE-22, CWE-59
Updated
2026-11-02
OSV 8.2

Path traversal via crafted cpio archives in Engrampa archivers

Engrampa is an archive manager for the MATE environment. Engrampa is found to be vulnerable to a Path Traversal vulnerability that can be leveraged to achieve full Remote Command Execution (RCE) on the target. While handling CPIO archives, the Engrampa Archive manager follows symlink, cpio by default will follow stored symlinks while extracting and the Archiver will not check the symlink location, which leads to arbitrary file writes to unintended locations. When the victim extracts the archive, the attacker can craft a malicious cpio or ISO archive to achieve RCE on the target system. This vulnerability was fixed in commit 63d5dfa.

Record
CVE-2023-52138
CVSS 3.1
8.2 HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:N
Weakness
CWE-25
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVDEBIAN-CVE-2023-52138 9.6

Engrampa is an archive manager for the MATE environment. Engrampa is found to be vulnerable to a Path Traversal vulnerability that can be leveraged to achieve full Remote Command Execution (RCE) on the target. While handling CPIO archives, the Engrampa Archive manager follows symlink, cpio by default will follow stored symlinks while extracting and the Archiver will not check the symlink location, which leads to arbitrary file writes to unintended locations. When the victim extracts the archive, the attacker can craft a malicious cpio or ISO archive to achieve RCE on the target system. This vulnerability was fixed in commit 63d5dfa.

Record
DEBIAN-CVE-2023-52138
CVSS 3.1
9.6 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVOESA-2024-1588 9.6

engrampa security update

Mate File Archiver is an application for creating and viewing archives files, such as zip, xv, bzip2, cab, rar and other compress formats.

Security Fix(es):

Engrampa is an archive manager for the MATE environment. Engrampa is found to be vulnerable to a Path Traversal vulnerability that can be leveraged to achieve full Remote Command Execution (RCE) on the target. While handling CPIO archives, the Engrampa Archive manager follows symlink, cpio by default will follow stored symlinks while extracting and the Archiver will not check the symlink location, which leads to arbitrary file writes to unintended locations. When the victim extracts the archive, the attacker can craft a malicious cpio or ISO archive to achieve RCE on the target system. This vulnerability was fixed in commit 63d5dfa. (CVE-2023-52138)

Record
OESA-2024-1588
CVSS 3.1
9.6 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Updated
2026-11-02
Show 5 moreShow less
OSVOESA-2024-1589 9.6

engrampa security update

Mate File Archiver is an application for creating and viewing archives files, such as zip, xv, bzip2, cab, rar and other compress formats.

Security Fix(es):

Engrampa is an archive manager for the MATE environment. Engrampa is found to be vulnerable to a Path Traversal vulnerability that can be leveraged to achieve full Remote Command Execution (RCE) on the target. While handling CPIO archives, the Engrampa Archive manager follows symlink, cpio by default will follow stored symlinks while extracting and the Archiver will not check the symlink location, which leads to arbitrary file writes to unintended locations. When the victim extracts the archive, the attacker can craft a malicious cpio or ISO archive to achieve RCE on the target system. This vulnerability was fixed in commit 63d5dfa. (CVE-2023-52138)

Record
OESA-2024-1589
CVSS 3.1
9.6 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVOESA-2026-3764 9.6

engrampa security update

Mate File Archiver is an application for creating and viewing archives files, such as zip, xv, bzip2, cab, rar and other compress formats.

Security Fix(es):

Engrampa is an archive manager for the MATE environment. Engrampa is found to be vulnerable to a Path Traversal vulnerability that can be leveraged to achieve full Remote Command Execution (RCE) on the target. While handling CPIO archives, the Engrampa Archive manager follows symlink, cpio by default will follow stored symlinks while extracting and the Archiver will not check the symlink location, which leads to arbitrary file writes to unintended locations. When the victim extracts the archive, the attacker can craft a malicious cpio or ISO archive to achieve RCE on the target system. This vulnerability was fixed in commit 63d5dfa.(CVE-2023-52138)

Record
OESA-2026-3764
CVSS 3.1
9.6 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVUBUNTU-CVE-2023-52138 8.2

Engrampa is an archive manager for the MATE environment. Engrampa is found to be vulnerable to a Path Traversal vulnerability that can be leveraged to achieve full Remote Command Execution (RCE) on the target. While handling CPIO archives, the Engrampa Archive manager follows symlink, cpio by default will follow stored symlinks while extracting and the Archiver will not check the symlink location, which leads to arbitrary file writes to unintended locations. When the victim extracts the archive, the attacker can craft a malicious cpio or ISO archive to achieve RCE on the target system. This vulnerability was fixed in commit 63d5dfa.

Record
UBUNTU-CVE-2023-52138
CVSS 3.1
8.2 HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:N
CVSS 3.1
9.6 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVopenSUSE-SU-2024:13747-1 No score

caja-engrampa-1.26.1-2.1 on GA media

These are all security issues fixed in the caja-engrampa-1.26.1-2.1 package on the GA media of openSUSE Tumbleweed.

Record
openSUSE-SU-2024:13747-1
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVUSN-8640-1 No score

engrampa vulnerability

It was discovered that Engrampa incorrectly handled symbolic links when extracting certain archives. An attacker could possibly use this issue to write arbitrary files and execute arbitrary code.

Record
USN-8640-1
Updated
2026-11-02

Affected products

Affected packages

Affected packages
PackageAffectedFixed
engrampa
Debian:12
before 1.26.0-1+deb12u2, plus listed versions
1.26.0-11.26.0-1+deb12u1
1.26.0-1+deb12u2
engrampa
Debian:13
before 1.26.2-1
1.26.2-1
engrampa
Debian:14
before 1.26.2-1
1.26.2-1
engrampa
Debian:10
before 1.20.2-1+deb10u1, plus listed versions
1.20.2-1
1.20.2-1+deb10u1
engrampa
Debian:11
before 1.24.1-1+deb11u1, plus listed versions
1.24.1-1
1.24.1-1+deb11u1
engrampa
openEuler:22.03-LTS-SP2
before 1.24.1-4.oe2203sp2
1.24.1-4.oe2203sp2
engrampa
openEuler:22.03-LTS-SP3
before 1.24.1-4.oe2203sp3
1.24.1-4.oe2203sp3
engrampa
openEuler:20.03-LTS-SP4
before 1.24.1-3.oe2003sp4
1.24.1-3.oe2003sp4
engrampa
Ubuntu:Pro:16.04:LTS
before 1.12.0-2ubuntu0.1+esm1, plus listed versions
1.10.2-11.12.0-11.12.0-21.12.0-2ubuntu0.1
1.12.0-2ubuntu0.1+esm1
engrampa
Ubuntu:Pro:18.04:LTS
before 1.20.0-1ubuntu0.1~esm1, plus listed versions
1.18.2-2ubuntu01.18.3-11.19.2-0ubuntu11.20.0-0ubuntu11.20.0-1
1.20.0-1ubuntu0.1~esm1
engrampa
Ubuntu:Pro:20.04:LTS
before 1.24.0-2ubuntu0.1~esm1, plus listed versions
1.22.1-21.22.3-11.24.0-0ubuntu11.24.0-11.24.0-2
1.24.0-2ubuntu0.1~esm1
engrampa
Ubuntu:Pro:22.04:LTS
before 1.26.0-1ubuntu1+esm1, plus listed versions
1.26.0-0ubuntu11.26.0-1ubuntu1
1.26.0-1ubuntu1+esm1

History

History
RecordedChangedSources
first indexedCVE List, EUVD, NVD, OSV

Dates are when Every CVE recorded each change. Upstream dates may differ.

In short

CVE-2023-52138 is a high vulnerability (CVSS 8.2) in Mate-desktop Engrampa, published February 5, 2024. No source lists public exploit code. EPSS puts the chance of exploitation in the next 30 days at 1.67%, the 76th percentile. Fixed in engrampa 1.26.0-1+deb12u2.

References

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