CVE-2026-55569

aqua: Archive extraction in aqua follows attacker-planted symlinks, allowing writes outside the install directory

MEDIUM
6.6
CVSS Score
Published: August 28, 2026 at 04:26 PM UTC
Updated: September 9, 2026 at 09:27 PM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorAqua

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Severity
MEDIUM6.6
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.2%
SSVC
PoC

Description

aqua is a declarative command-line version manager written in Go. Prior to 2.60.1, pkg/unarchive/archives.go in the handler.HandleFile method calls os.Symlink with archives.FileInfo.LinkTarget without verifying that the target remains under the extraction destination. A later regular-file entry at the same archive path is opened with OpenFile using O_CREATE and O_WRONLY, which follows the attacker-planted symlink. A malicious or compromised package archive can therefore write attacker-controlled bytes outside aqua's extraction directory with the privileges of the user running aqua, potentially overwriting shell startup files, tool configuration, or writable executable paths. This issue is fixed in version 2.60.1.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v < 2.60.1
Affected range stops below 2.60.1, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet, and no fixed version or vendor advisory is recorded against it.

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCPoCNot automatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

6.6MEDIUMGitHub_M
Attack Vector
LOCAL
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
REQUIRED
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
LOW
Integrity
HIGH
Availability
LOW
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusDEFERRED
CWE
CWE-22CWE-59

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