CWE-27 – Path Traversal: ‘dir/../../filename’

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Description

The software uses external input to construct a pathname that should be within a restricted directory, but it does not properly neutralize multiple internal “../” sequences that can resolve to a location that is outside of that directory.

Modes of Introduction:

– Implementation

 

 

Related Weaknesses

CWE-23

 

Consequences

Confidentiality, Integrity: Read Files or Directories, Modify Files or Directories

 

Potential Mitigations

Phase: Implementation

Description: 

Phase: Implementation

Description: 

Inputs should be decoded and canonicalized to the application’s current internal representation before being validated (CWE-180). Make sure that the application does not decode the same input twice (CWE-174). Such errors could be used to bypass allowlist validation schemes by introducing dangerous inputs after they have been checked.

CVE References

  • CVE-2002-0298
    • Server allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service via certain HTTP GET requests containing a %2e%2e (encoded dot-dot), several “/../” sequences, or several “../” in a URI.