diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
index b547d5ebf..be7e7a8ba 100644
--- a/.gitattributes
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -13,7 +13,9 @@ tests/_data/volumes/bde/enc-volume.bin filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
 tests/_data/volumes/md/md-nested.bin.gz filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
 tests/_data/loaders/tar/test-anon-filesystems.tar filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
 tests/_data/plugins/apps/browser/firefox/cookies.sqlite filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
+tests/_data/plugins/apps/container/docker/docker.tgz filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
+tests/_data/loaders/cpio/initrd.img-6.1.0-15-amd64 filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
+tests/_data/loaders/cpio/initrd.img-6.1.0-17-amd64 filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
 tests/_data/plugins/os/unix/locate/locatedb filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
 tests/_data/plugins/os/unix/locate/mlocate.db filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
 tests/_data/plugins/os/unix/locate/plocate.db filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
-tests/_data/plugins/apps/container/docker/docker.tgz filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/dissect/target/filesystem.py b/dissect/target/filesystem.py
index 8d26a8c5c..3d409ad1f 100644
--- a/dissect/target/filesystem.py
+++ b/dissect/target/filesystem.py
@@ -1588,5 +1588,7 @@ def open_multi_volume(fhs: list[BinaryIO], *args, **kwargs) -> Filesystem:
 register("exfat", "ExfatFilesystem")
 register("squashfs", "SquashFSFilesystem")
 register("zip", "ZipFilesystem")
+register("tar", "TarFilesystem")
+register("cpio", "CpioFilesystem")
 register("ad1", "AD1Filesystem")
 register("jffs", "JFFSFilesystem")
diff --git a/dissect/target/filesystems/cpio.py b/dissect/target/filesystems/cpio.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..5e8d2aee2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/dissect/target/filesystems/cpio.py
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+from typing import BinaryIO, Optional
+
+from dissect.util import cpio
+
+from dissect.target.filesystems.tar import TarFilesystem
+from dissect.target.helpers.fsutil import open_decompress
+
+
+class CpioFilesystem(TarFilesystem):
+    __type__ = "cpio"
+
+    def __init__(self, fh: BinaryIO, base: Optional[str] = None, *args, **kwargs):
+        super().__init__(open_decompress(fileobj=fh), base, tarinfo=cpio.CpioInfo, *args, **kwargs)
+
+    @staticmethod
+    def _detect(fh: BinaryIO) -> bool:
+        """Detect a cpio file on a given file-like object."""
+        return cpio.detect_header(open_decompress(fileobj=fh)) != cpio.FORMAT_CPIO_UNKNOWN
diff --git a/dissect/target/helpers/fsutil.py b/dissect/target/helpers/fsutil.py
index 7866eead1..cab58d1cc 100644
--- a/dissect/target/helpers/fsutil.py
+++ b/dissect/target/helpers/fsutil.py
@@ -20,6 +20,13 @@
 except ImportError:
     HAVE_BZ2 = False
 
+try:
+    import zstandard
+
+    HAVE_ZSTD = True
+except ImportError:
+    HAVE_ZSTD = False
+
 import dissect.target.filesystem as filesystem
 from dissect.target.exceptions import FileNotFoundError, SymlinkRecursionError
 from dissect.target.helpers.polypath import (
@@ -445,17 +452,22 @@ def resolve_link(
 
 
 def open_decompress(
-    path: TargetPath,
+    path: Optional[TargetPath] = None,
     mode: str = "rb",
+    *,
+    fileobj: Optional[BinaryIO] = None,
     encoding: Optional[str] = "UTF-8",
     errors: Optional[str] = "backslashreplace",
     newline: Optional[str] = None,
 ) -> Union[BinaryIO, TextIO]:
-    """Open and decompress a file. Handles gz and bz2 files. Uncompressed files are opened as-is.
+    """Open and decompress a file. Handles gz, bz2 and zstd files. Uncompressed files are opened as-is.
+
+    When passing in an already opened ``fileobj``, the mode, encoding, errors and newline arguments are ignored.
 
     Args:
         path: The path to the file to open and decompress. It is assumed this path exists.
         mode: The mode in which to open the file.
+        fileobj: The file-like object to open and decompress. This is mutually exclusive with path.
         encoding: The decoding for text streams. By default UTF-8 encoding is used.
         errors: The error handling for text streams. By default we're more lenient and use ``backslashreplace``.
         newline: How newlines are handled for text streams.
@@ -469,7 +481,17 @@ def open_decompress(
         for line in open_decompress(Path("/dir/file.gz"), "rt"):
             print(line)
     """
-    file = path.open()
+    if path and fileobj:
+        raise ValueError("path and fileobj are mutually exclusive")
+
+    if not path and not fileobj:
+        raise ValueError("path or fileobj is required")
+
+    if path:
+        file = path.open("rb")
+    else:
+        file = fileobj
+
     magic = file.read(4)
     file.seek(0)
 
@@ -480,13 +502,22 @@ def open_decompress(
 
     if magic[:2] == b"\x1f\x8b":
         return gzip.open(file, mode, encoding=encoding, errors=errors, newline=newline)
-    # In a valid bz2 header the 4th byte is in the range b'1' ... b'9'.
-    elif HAVE_BZ2 and magic[:3] == b"BZh" and 0x31 <= magic[3] <= 0x39:
+
+    if HAVE_BZ2 and magic[:3] == b"BZh" and 0x31 <= magic[3] <= 0x39:
+        # In a valid bz2 header the 4th byte is in the range b'1' ... b'9'.
         return bz2.open(file, mode, encoding=encoding, errors=errors, newline=newline)
-    else:
+
+    if HAVE_ZSTD and magic[:4] in [b"\xfd\x2f\xb5\x28", b"\x28\xb5\x2f\xfd"]:
+        # stream_reader is not seekable, so we have to resort to the less
+        # efficient decompressor which returns bytes.
+        return io.BytesIO(zstandard.decompress(file.read()))
+
+    if path:
         file.close()
         return path.open(mode, encoding=encoding, errors=errors, newline=newline)
 
+    return file
+
 
 def reverse_readlines(fh: TextIO, chunk_size: int = 1024 * 1024 * 8) -> Iterator[str]:
     """Like iterating over a ``TextIO`` file-like object, but starting from the end of the file.
diff --git a/tests/_data/loaders/cpio/initrd.img-6.1.0-15-amd64 b/tests/_data/loaders/cpio/initrd.img-6.1.0-15-amd64
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..5d150b16e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/_data/loaders/cpio/initrd.img-6.1.0-15-amd64
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+version https://git-lfs.github.com/spec/v1
+oid sha256:a12f63a0c0783d9f647e46d058cfd1cd973ae0fc47332741d5ada70c91838426
+size 30818636
diff --git a/tests/_data/loaders/cpio/initrd.img-6.1.0-17-amd64 b/tests/_data/loaders/cpio/initrd.img-6.1.0-17-amd64
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..fb46ce16b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/_data/loaders/cpio/initrd.img-6.1.0-17-amd64
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+version https://git-lfs.github.com/spec/v1
+oid sha256:da629b5cf297525debef2388df1259f6c272f07a42c22162070e601dcfbe79a4
+size 38204386
diff --git a/tests/filesystems/test_cpio.py b/tests/filesystems/test_cpio.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..0944d50bb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/filesystems/test_cpio.py
@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+from pathlib import Path
+
+from dissect.target.filesystems.cpio import CpioFilesystem
+from tests._utils import absolute_path
+
+
+def test_cpio_uncompressed() -> None:
+    cpio_path = Path(absolute_path("_data/loaders/cpio/initrd.img-6.1.0-17-amd64"))
+
+    with cpio_path.open("rb") as fh:
+        assert CpioFilesystem.detect(fh)
+
+        fs = CpioFilesystem(fh)
+        assert [f.name for f in fs.path("/").iterdir()] == ["kernel"]
+
+
+def test_cpio_compressed_zstd() -> None:
+    cpio_path = Path(absolute_path("_data/loaders/cpio/initrd.img-6.1.0-15-amd64"))
+
+    with cpio_path.open("rb") as fh:
+        assert CpioFilesystem.detect(fh)
+
+        fs = CpioFilesystem(fh)
+        assert [f.name for f in fs.path("/").iterdir()] == [
+            "bin",
+            "conf",
+            "etc",
+            "init",
+            "lib",
+            "lib64",
+            "run",
+            "sbin",
+            "scripts",
+            "usr",
+        ]