Cargo downloads the Rust project’s dependencies and compiles the project. Cargo prior to version 0.72.2, bundled with Rust prior to version 1.71.1, did not respect the umask when extracting crate archives on UNIX-like systems. If the user downloaded a crate containing files writeable by any local user, another local user could exploit this to change the source code compiled and executed by the current user.

To prevent existing cached extractions from being exploitable, the Cargo binary version 0.72.2 included in Rust 1.71.1 or later will purge caches generated by older Cargo versions automatically. As a workaround, configure one's system to prevent other local users from accessing the Cargo directory, usually located in ~/.cargo.