CVE-2026-59873 — node-tar: Decompression/parse DoS via unlimited input

Affected: isaacs node-tar

node-tar is a tar archive manipulation library for Node.js. Prior to 7.5.19, node-tar does not enforce hard upper bounds on total decompressed data, entry counts, or decompression ratio in extraction and parsing paths such as src/extract.ts, allowing a small crafted gzip bomb to exhaust disk space and CPU. This issue is fixed in version 7.5.19.

GHSA-23hp-3jrh-7fpw — node-tar: Decompression/parse DoS via unlimited input

Affected: npm: tar

### Summary A **Decompression/parse DoS via unlimited input** vulnerability in `node-tar` allows an attacker to exhaust server resources (disk space and CPU). Because the library does not enforce hard upper bounds on total decompressed data or entry counts, a small, maliciously crafted "Gzip Bomb" can be used to fill a server's storage and crash services.

### Details The `node-tar` library does not enforce a hard upper bound on archive size or the volume of decompressed data processed during extraction. While the `maxReadSize` option exists, it only controls internal read chunk sizes (default 16MB) and does not limit the total cumulative bytes written to disk.

Specifically, in `src/extract.ts`, the `Unpack` stream processes entries as they arrive. There is no total-bytes limit, entry-count limit, or decompression ratio guard. An attacker can provide a TAR header claiming a massive file size (e.g., 10GB) and follow it with highly compressible data (like zeros). `node-tar` will continue to extract and write this data until the physical disk is exhausted, as it lacks a mechanism to abort based on global resource consumption.

### PoC The following Proof of Concept demonstrates how a tiny compressed input can be expanded into gigabytes of data on the host machine almost instantly.

1. Create the exploit script: ```javascript const fs = require('fs'), z = require('zlib'), t = require('tar');

const d = 'dos_test'; if (fs.existsSync(d)) fs.rmSync(d, {recursive:true}); fs.mkdirSy…

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CVE-2026-59873 — node-tar: Decompression/parse DoS via unlimited input

GHSA-23hp-3jrh-7fpw — node-tar: Decompression/parse DoS via unlimited input