penelope vulnerability

Penelope Shell Handler is a post-exploitation shell handler for authorized security testing. Prior to 0.20.0, the Unix download() implementation in penelope.py used tar.extractall(local_download_folder) on tar archives returned by remote sessions without validating member paths, allowing a malicious or compromised session to write files outside the intended download directory and potentially overwrite ~/.penelope/peneloperc. This issue is fixed in version 0.20.0.

Published 29 Jul 2026Updated 10 Sep 20264 sources
CVSS 5.9

What happened

Penelope Shell Handler is a post-exploitation shell handler for authorized security testing. Prior to 0.20.0, the Unix download() implementation in penelope.py used tar.extractall(local_download_folder) on tar archives returned by remote sessions without validating member paths, allowing a malicious or compromised session to write files outside the intended download directory and potentially overwrite ~/.penelope/peneloperc. This issue is fixed in version 0.20.0.

Affected versions

penelope: < 0.20.0 Fixed: See vendor advisory.

Why it matters

Review the vendor advisory and exposure of the affected product to determine operational impact.

Detection & mitigation

  • Apply vendor-provided updates or mitigations.
  • Review affected product exposure and access logs.

Public PoC references

No public PoC reference has passed the current publication threshold.