CWE · MITRE source

CWE-24Path Traversal: '../filedir'

Abstraction: Variant · CVEs in our corpus: 108

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

This allows attackers to traverse the file system to access files or directories that are outside of the restricted directory. The "../" manipulation is the canonical manipulation for operating systems that use "/" as directory separators, such as UNIX- and Linux-based systems. In some cases, it is useful for bypassing protection schemes in environments for which "/" is supported but not the primary separator, such as Windows, which uses "\" but can also accept "/".

Last updated: 09 May 2026 03:25 UTC