FlashAttention through 2.8.3.post1, fixed in commit 0816ef1, contains a symlink attack vulnerability in the download_and_copy() function within hopper/setup.py that extracts NVIDIA toolchain archives without validating symlinks or filtering tar members. A local attacker can pre-plant a symlink in the predictable cache directory to redirect extracted binaries to an attacker-chosen location, enabling arbitrary file write with victim privileges during build time.
Fix
Nothing published yet: no patch, vendor advisory or mitigation reference on NVD, no vendor advisory in the News for this CVE, not in CISA's KEV, no fixed package version. BaselineWatch does not guess at one.
Change history 1
- First seenCVSS 5.3NVD modified 2026-10-24 22:10
Affected (CPE criteria) 0
NVD has not attached CPE configurations yet.
References 5
- https://github.com/Dao-AILab/flash-attention/commit/0816ef12f424c6ec94b057a72c275b14f6e6edb2
- https://github.com/Dao-AILab/flash-attention/issues/2637
- https://github.com/Dao-AILab/flash-attention/pull/2702
- https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/flashattention-symlink-attack-via-tarfile-extractall-in-hopper-setup-py
- https://github.com/Dao-AILab/flash-attention/issues/2637