External Control of File Name or Path
CWE-73
The product allows user input to control or influence paths or file names that are used in filesystem operations.
We track 436 vulnerabilities of this type. 99% are rated high or critical, and the average CVSS score is 8.3. 6 have been exploited in real attacks.
How this weakness is prevented
- Architecture and Design: When the set of filenames is limited or known, create a mapping from a set of fixed input values (such as numeric IDs) to the actual filenames, and reject all other inputs. For example, ID 1 could map to inbox.txt and ID 2 could map to profile.txt. Features such as the ESAPI AccessReferenceMap provide this capability.
- Architecture and Design Operation: Run your code in a jail or similar sandbox environment that enforces strict boundaries between the process and the operating system. This may effectively restrict all access to files within a particular directory. Examples include the Unix chroot jail and AppArmor. In general, managed code may provide some protection. This may not be a feasible solution, and it only limits the impact to the operating system; the rest of your application may still be subject to compromise. Be careful to avoid CWE-243 and other weaknesses related to jails.
- Architecture and Design: For any security checks that are performed on the client side, ensure that these checks are duplicated on the server side, in order to avoid CWE-602. Attackers can bypass the client-side checks by modifying values after the checks have been performed, or by changing the client to remove the client-side checks entirely. Then, these modified values would be submitted to the server.
- Implementation: Use a built-in path canonicalization function (such as realpath() in C) that produces the canonical version of the pathname, which effectively removes.. sequences and symbolic links (CWE-23, CWE-59).
- Installation Operation: Use OS-level permissions and run as a low-privileged user to limit the scope of any successful attack.
Latest External Control of File Name or Path vulnerabilities
- 8.7 High severity
Order Tip for WooCommerce: External Control of File Name or Path
The Order Tip for WooCommerce WordPress plugin before 1.6.0 does not check the capability of the user requesting a file deletion, nor does it restrict which path may be deleted, allowing users with the Shop Manager role and above to delete arbitrary files on t
- 8.7 High severity
typebot.io: External Control of File Name or Path
Typebot is an open-source chatbot builder. In self-hosted versions prior to 3.18.0, the server-side Send Email integration block allows arbitrary reading of local files on the server. The block builds Nodemailer attachments from a typebot variable, and its par
- 7.1 High severity
sublinear-time-solver: External Control of File Name or Path
sublinear-time-solver is a Rust and WebAssembly library for solving asymmetric diagonally dominant systems in sublinear time. Prior to consciousness-explorer 1.1.2 and sublinear-time-solver 1.6.0, the export_state and import_state tools in src/consciousness-ex
- 7.5 High severity
The Kaltura HTML5 player (mwEmbed / html5lib) contains a local file disclosure vulnerability…
The Kaltura HTML5 player (mwEmbed / html5lib) contains a local file disclosure vulnerability due to improper validation of the ServiceUrl parameter in mwEmbedLoader.php. This parameter is used as the base URL for a backend request and accepts non‑HTTP schemes
- 8.2 High severity
nltk: External Control of File Name or Path
NLTK versions before 3.10.3 contain a path sandbox bypass vulnerability in corpus-reader constructors that allows attackers to read files outside the intended data root. Attackers can supply arbitrary corpus root paths to LinThesaurusCorpusReader and PanLexLit
- 7.1 High severity
PraisonAI: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory
PraisonAI is a multi-agent teams system. Prior to praisonaiagents 1.6.58, the FileMemory constructor joins unsanitized user_id into self.user_path. A caller supplying ../ or path separators can escape the memory directory and write JSON data to arbitrary proce
- 7.8 High severity
GitPython: External Control of File Name or Path
GitPython before 3.1.59 fails to disable merge_includes when parsing .gitmodules, allowing attackers to disclose local file content by including arbitrary file paths via [include] directives. Attackers can craft a malicious .gitmodules file with include direct
- 9.8 Critical severity
adminer: External Control of File Name or Path
Adminer before 5.4.3 fails to sanitize the server field before constructing a PDO DSN string, allowing unauthenticated attackers to inject ODBC parameters via semicolons. Attackers can inject TraceFile and TraceOn parameters to write PHP code to the web root,
- 7.5 High severity
exceljs: External Control of File Name or Path
exceljs through 4.4.0 contains a path traversal vulnerability in the Workbook.addImage() function that fails to validate file paths. Attackers can supply arbitrary file paths to read any file accessible to the Node.js process and embed it in the generated work
- 7.5 High severity
nltk: External Control of File Name or Path
NLTK versions before 3.10.0 contain a path traversal vulnerability in FramenetCorpusReader and NKJPCorpusReader that allows attackers to parse XML files outside the corpus root by supplying unsafe selectors or poisoned index state. Attackers can exploit frame_
- 7.8 High severity
recce: External Control of File Name or Path
Recce is a data-validation toolkit for enhanced dbt (data build tool) PR review. Prior to version 1.50.0, OSS server deployments that expose the server to an untrusted network without authentication are vulnerable to unauthenticated SQL execution through the q
- 8.1 High severity
atlantis: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory
Atlantis is a self-hosted golang application that listens for Terraform pull request events via webhooks. From 0.19.8 until 0.45.0, Atlantis does not consistently validate user-controlled workspace values supplied through accepted repository-level atlantis.yam
- 7.0 High severity
OctoPrint: External Control of File Name or Path
OctoPrint provides a web interface for controlling consumer 3D printers. Prior to 1.11.8 and 2.0.0rc3, OctoPrint's custom Tornado upload handler and Flask with Werkzeug parse request parameters differently, allowing an attacker with FILE_UPLOAD permission to i
- 9.9 Critical severity
incus: External Control of File Name or Path
Incus is a system container and virtual machine manager. Prior to version 7.3.0, a malicious image containing a `metadata.yaml` symlink pointing to an arbitrary host path allows an authenticated Incus user to read or overwrite any file on the host as root via
- 9.9 Critical severity
incus: External Control of File Name or Path
Incus is a system container and virtual machine manager. Prior to version 7.1.0, the S3 protocol upload endpoint is vulnerable to path traversal and allows creation of arbitrary files on the host. This behavior could lead to arbitrary command execution. Versio
- 9.9 Critical severity
incus: External Control of File Name or Path
Incus is a system container and virtual machine manager. Prior to version 7.2.0, a specially crafted image or instance backup can be used to read or create/write arbitrary files on the host; possibly leading to arbitrary command execution. Version 7.2.0 patche
- 9.9 Critical severity
incus: External Control of File Name or Path
Incus is a system container and virtual machine manager. Prior to version 7.2.0, the `record-output` parameter of the `/instances/$name/exec` endpoint stores the output of the command in the `exec-output` directory of the instance. If `exec-output` is a symlin
- 9.9 Critical severity
incus: External Control of File Name or Path
Incus is a system container and virtual machine manager. Prior to version 7.2.0, a specially crafted image can be used to read or create/write arbitrary files on the host; possibly leading to arbitrary command execution. Version 7.2.0 fixes the issue.
- 9.3 Critical severity
Data Management Center: External Control of File Name or Path
External Control of File Name or Path in the upload API endpoint of Datiphy Data Management Center from v8.3.0 through v8.5.1 allows a remote attacker to write files to arbitrary locations outside the intended upload directory via relative or absolute path seq
- 8.1 High severity
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4: External Control of File Name or Path
A flaw was found in Kata Containers. In configurations utilizing genpolicy for Confidential Containers guest protection, a malicious host operator can exploit insufficient validation of CreateContainer mount and storage rules. This allows them to mount arbitra
- 9.1 Critical severity
AIX: External Control of File Name or Path
IBM AIX 7.2, and 7.3 and IBM PowerVM VIOS 4.1 could allow a remote attacker to overwrite arbitrary files due to improper neutralization of special elements in input.
- 9.1 Critical severity
wazuh: External Control of File Name or Path
Wazuh is a free and open source platform used for threat prevention, detection, and response. From 4.3.0 until 4.14.6 and 5.0.0-beta3, the non-merged branch of process_files_from_worker() in framework/wazuh/core/cluster/master.py trusts a peer-controlled file_
- 9.1 Critical severity
wazuh: External Control of File Name or Path
Wazuh is a free and open source platform used for threat prevention, detection, and response. From 4.0.0 until 4.14.6 and 5.0.0-beta3, DistributedAPI.send_tmp_file() in framework/wazuh/core/cluster/dapi/dapi.py joins an attacker-controlled tmp_file value to WA
- 10.0 Critical severity
Cisco Crosswork Planning: External Control of File Name or Path
As part of Cisco's ongoing commitment to proactive security and product quality, the Cisco Crosswork engineering team has conducted a comprehensive internal security review. This review resulted in a software hardening release that addresses multiple internall
- 9.8 Critical severity
ground-station: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory
Ground Station is a browser-based suite for satellite tracking, SDR reception, hardware control, and telemetry decoding. Prior to version 0.4.13, the unauthenticated save-waterfall-snapshot Socket.IO command passes attacker-controlled snapshotName input from b
- 8.4 High severity
streambert: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory
Streambert is a cross-platform Electron Desktop App to stream and download video content. Prior to 2.6.0, the perform-scheduled-backup IPC handler in src/ipc/storage.js takes settings.path from a renderer-supplied object and uses the resulting directory for fs
- 8.8 High severity
streambert: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory
Streambert is a cross-platform Electron Desktop App to stream and download video content. Prior to 2.5.0, the downloadSubtitleFile utility in src/ipc/downloads.js, reached through the run-download IPC channel, accepts a renderer-supplied subtitle url using the
- 9.3 Critical severity
CodeWhale: External Control of File Name or Path
CodeWhale versions >= 0.3.27 and < 0.8.64 (published as deepseek-tui >= 0.3.27 and < 0.8.41 on npm and 0.3.27 through 0.8.41 on crates.io, and as codewhale / codewhale-tui >= 0.8.41 and < 0.8.64) contain an argument injection vulnerability in the git_show tool
- 7.1 High severity
SSH.NET: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory
SSH.NET is a Secure Shell (SSH) library for .NET. In 2025.1.0 and earlier, ScpClient.Download(string directoryName, DirectoryInfo directoryInfo) trusts file and directory names returned by a remote SCP server and combines them with the requested local director
- 7.1 High severity
grav: External Control of File Name or Path
grav-plugin-api (getgrav/grav-plugin-api) versions >= 1.0.0-beta.10 and <= 1.0.14 contain a path traversal vulnerability in the PagesController::batchCopy() method. An incomplete fix for GHSA-qjq4-jp55-4mx2 left the user-controlled 'suffix' parameter (via POST
- 8.4 High severity
compliance-trestle: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory
compliance-trestle is a tooling platform for managing compliance as code. Prior to versions 3.12.2 and 4.0.3, the `-o/--output` argument in `trestle author jinja` allows writing files outside the intended workspace. The application does not properly validate,
- 7.2 High severity
In Progress ShareFile Storage Zones Controller versions <= 5.12.5 and <= 6.0.2, an…
In Progress ShareFile Storage Zones Controller versions <= 5.12.5 and <= 6.0.2, an authenticated zone administrator can exploit improper validation in the download preparation flow, enabling attacker-controlled files to be written outside the intended preparat
- 7.2 High severity
ShareFile Storage Zones Controller: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory
In Progress ShareFile Storage Zones Controller v5.12.5 and below, a party with valid zone credentials can perform path traversal using resumable upload initiation endpoint, allowing the party to write arbitrary content to any location writable by the applicati
- 7.5 High severity
openssl_encrypt: External Control of File Name or Path
openssl_encrypt versions before 1.4.0 contain a path traversal vulnerability in the _is_safe_path method where the plugin_id parameter is not sanitized before constructing the plugin config directory path. Attackers can declare a malicious plugin_id containing
- 9.9 Critical severity
luci: External Control of File Name or Path
luci-app-lxc contains an ACL inconsistency vulnerability that allows low-privileged authenticated LuCI users to access backend container management routes without proper authorization checks. Attackers can exploit path traversal via `/.%2E` in the `lxc_name` p
- 9.9 Critical severity
luci: External Control of File Name or Path
luci-app-openvpn fails to properly validate the instance_name2 parameter during file upload, allowing authenticated users to perform path traversal and write arbitrary files outside the intended directory. Attackers can upload malicious payloads to gain persis
- 7.1 High severity
compliance-trestle: External Control of File Name or Path
compliance-trestle is a tooling platform for managing compliance as code. Prior to versiions 3.12.2 and 4.0.3, the compliance-trestle library's remote fetching cache mechanism (HTTPSFetcher and SFTPFetcher) constructs the local cache file path from the URL pat
- 7.8 High severity
i: External Control of File Name or Path
IBM i 7.6, 7.5, 7.4, and 7.3 could allow a local authenticated attacker to change the ownership of arbitrary files due to improper validation of an attacker-controlled file path.
- 9.8 Critical severity
WhatsUp Gold: External Control of File Name or Path
In WhatsUp Gold versions released before 2026.0.2, an unauthenticated remote attacker with network access to the affected service can execute arbitrary code in the context of the IIS application service account.
- 7.5 High severity
WP Photo Album Plus: External Control of File Name or Path
The WP Photo Album Plus WordPress plugin before 9.2.07.002 does not validate a client-controlled value used to build a file path in one of its public endpoint actions, and performs no authorisation check on it, allowing unauthenticated attackers to delete arbi