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High · 8.8 CVE-2026-27976 EUVD-2026-8778

Zed Extension Sandbox Escape via Tar Symlink Following

Published Feb 25, 2026 · Updated Feb 27, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

Zed, a code editor, has an extension installer allows tar/gzip downloads. Prior to version 0.224.4, the tar extractor (`async_tar::Archive::unpack`) creates symlinks from the archive without validation, and the path guard (`writeable_path_from_extension`) only performs lexical prefix checks without resolving symlinks. An attacker can ship a tar that first creates a symlink inside the extension workdir pointing outside (e.g., `escape -> /`), then writes files through the symlink, causing writes to arbitrary host paths. This escapes the extension sandbox and enables code execution. Version 0.224.4 patches the issue.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
zed-industries zed < 0.224.4 —

References