CWE WEAKNESSES  /  CWE-23

CWE-23

Relative Path Traversal

What it is

The product uses external input to construct a pathname that should be within a restricted directory, but it does not properly neutralize sequences such as ".." that can resolve to a location that is outside of that directory.

Impact

Mitigations

• [Implementation]Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.When performing input validation, consider all potentially relevant properties, including length, type of input, the full r
• [Implementation]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.Use a built-in path canonicalization function (such as realp
• [Operation] Use an application firewall that can detect attacks against this weakness. It can be beneficial in cases in which the code cannot be fixed (because it is controlled by a third party), as an emergency prevention measure while more comprehensive software assurance measures are applied, or to provide defense in depth [REF-1481].

Real-world CVE examples

• CVE-2024-37032 — Large language model (LLM) management tool does not validate the format of a digest value (CWE-1287) from a private, untrusted model registry, enabling relative
• CVE-2024-0520 — Product for managing datasets for AI model training and evaluation allows both relative (CWE-23) and absolute (CWE-36) path traversal to overwrite files via the
• CVE-2022-45918 — Chain: a learning management tool debugger uses external input to locate previous session logs (CWE-73) and does not properly validate the given path (CWE-20),
• CVE-2019-20916 — Python package manager does not correctly restrict the filename specified in a Content-Disposition header, allowing arbitrary file read using path traversal seq
• CVE-2022-24877 — directory traversal in Go-based Kubernetes operator app allows accessing data from the controller's pod file system via ../ sequences in a yaml file
• CVE-2020-4053 — a Kubernetes package manager written in Go allows malicious plugins to inject path traversal sequences into a plugin archive ("Zip slip") to copy a file outside
• CVE-2021-21972 — Chain: Cloud computing virtualization platform does not require authentication for upload of a tar format file (CWE-306), then uses .. path traversal sequences
• CVE-2019-10743 — Go-based archive library allows extraction of files to locations outside of the target folder with "../" path traversal sequences in filenames in a zip file, ak
• 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 se
• CVE-2002-0661 — "\" not in denylist for web server, allowing path traversal attacks when the server is run in Windows and other OSes.
• CVE-2002-0946 — Arbitrary files may be read files via ..\ (dot dot) sequences in an HTTP request.
• CVE-2002-1042 — Directory traversal vulnerability in search engine for web server allows remote attackers to read arbitrary files via "..\" sequences in queries.

Related weaknesses

Source: MITRE CWE. View on cwe.mitre.org →