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Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

CVE-2011-4675

Severity Medium
Score 6.4/10

Summary

The pathname canonicalization functionality in io/filesystem/filesystem.cc in Widelands before 15.1 expands leading ~ (tilde) characters to home-directory pathnames but does not restrict use of these characters in strings received from the network, which might allow remote attackers to conduct absolute path traversal attacks and overwrite arbitrary files via a ~ in a pathname that is used for a file transfer in an Internet game, a different vulnerability than CVE-2011-1932.

  • LOW
  • NETWORK
  • NONE
  • PARTIAL
  • NONE
  • PARTIAL

CWE-22 - Path Traversal

Path traversal (or directory traversal), is a vulnerability that allows malicious users to traverse the server's root directory, gaining access to arbitrary files and folders such as application code & data, back-end credentials, and sensitive operating system files. In the worst-case scenario, an attacker could potentially execute arbitrary files on the server, resulting in a denial of service attack. Such an exploit may severely impact the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of an application.

References

Advisory Timeline

  • Published