CWE-57

Path Equivalence: 'fakedir/../realdir/filename'
AI Translation Available

The product contains protection mechanisms to restrict access to 'realdir/filename', but it constructs pathnames using external input in the form of 'fakedir/../realdir/filename' that are not handled by those mechanisms. This allows attackers to perform unauthorized actions against the targeted file.

Status
incomplete
Abstraction
variant

Common Consequences

confidentiality integrity
Impacts
read files or directories modify files or directories

Potential Mitigations

Phases:
implementation
Descriptions:
• 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.

Functional Areas

file processing