The vulnerability resides in aqua's unarchive handler, where a Unix symlink is created without restricting the link target path. If an attacker controls a package archive, they can insert a symlink that points to any location on the filesystem. When the archive extraction later creates a regular file at the same path, the open call follows that symlink. The user running aqua can thus write arbitrary bytes outside the intended extraction directory. The attacker could overwrite startup scripts, configuration files or writable executable paths, compromising the user environment.

Affected systems are installations of aquaproj:aqua, specifically those running any version prior to 2.60.1. The vulnerability is fixed in release v2.60.1. No broader vendor has been identified; the product is a cross‑platform command‑line tool written in Go that manages tool installations.

The CVSS score of 6.6 indicates moderate severity, while EPSS is currently not available so exploitation likelihood cannot be quantified. The vulnerability is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog. Attackers would need only a malicious or compromised package archive, which is fairly simple to create or supply. As a result, the risk is that any user permitting aqua to install or update from untrusted sources may inadvertently write files into sensitive locations, potentially leading to privilege escalation within the user's context.