Predictive Vulnerability Intelligence.

Product

  • Product
  • Pricing
  • Documentation

Company

  • About
  • Partnerships
  • Blog
  • Support

Legal

  • Terms
  • Privacy
  • Data Licensing

© 2026 FAUCET Technologies LLC. All rights reserved.

CVE-2018-20482

19
FAUCET Score

CVE-2018-20482 is a denial-of-service vulnerability in GNU Tar versions up to 1.30, affecting various Debian, GNU, and openSUSE distributions, specifically when the --sparse option is used. A local attacker with low privileges can trigger an infinite read loop by modifying a file being archived by another user's process, such as a root-privileged backup. This vulnerability has a CVSS score of 4.7 (Medium), indicating a local attack vector with high attack complexity and a high impact on availability. There is no evidence of active exploitation, public exploit code (Metasploit, Nuclei, ExploitDB), or significant community discussion or media coverage surrounding this CVE.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
<= 1.30CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:gnu:tar:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
8.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
9.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:9.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
15.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:opensuse:leap:15.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 3.1

4.7MEDIUM

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector
LOCAL
Attack Complexity
HIGH
Privileges Required
LOW
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
NONE
Integrity Impact
NONE
Availability Impact
HIGH
Exploitability Score
1.0
Impact Score
3.6
CvssVersion
3.1

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
0.53%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
41.4%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-25
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0053 is in the 86th percentile among its peer group of 1,296 CVEs.

Social Chatter

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.1 Reddit, 0.1 Bluesky, 0.0 Mastodon, and 0.1 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

No media coverage found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.4 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Vendor Patches (3)

redhatend of lifevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5Fixed in: tar
redhatend of lifevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6Fixed in: tar
redhatend of lifevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7Fixed in: tar

Vendor Advisories (1)

redhatCVE-2018-20482Low

tar: Infinite read loop in sparse_dump_region function in sparse.c

Dec 26, 2018

References

git.savannah.gnu.org / cgit/tar.git/commit
PatchThird Party Advisory
lists.gnu.org / archive/html/bug-tar/2018-12/msg00023.html
Third Party Advisory
lists.opensuse.org / opensuse-security-announce/2019-04/msg00077.html
Mailing ListThird Party Advisory
lists.debian.org / debian-lts-announce/2018/12/msg00023.html
Mailing ListThird Party Advisory
lists.debian.org / debian-lts-announce/2021/11/msg00025.html
Mailing ListThird Party Advisory
news.ycombinator.com / item
ExploitThird Party Advisory
security.gentoo.org / glsa/201903-05
Third Party Advisory
twitter.com / thatcks/status/1076166645708668928
PatchThird Party Advisory
utcc.utoronto.ca / ~cks/space/blog/sysadmin/TarFindingTruncateBug
PatchThird Party Advisory
securityfocus.com / bid/106354
Third Party AdvisoryVDB Entry