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

CVE-2023-37896

High
7.5/10

Summary

Nuclei is a vulnerability scanner. In versions prior to 2.9.9, a security issue in the Nuclei project affected users utilizing Nuclei as Go code (SDK) running custom templates. This issue did not affect CLI users. The problem was related to sanitization issues with payload loading in sandbox mode. There was a potential risk with payloads loading in sandbox mode. The issue occurred due to relative paths not being converted to absolute paths before doing the check for `sandbox` flag allowing arbitrary files to be read on the filesystem in certain cases when using Nuclei from `Go` SDK implementation. The maintainers have also enabled sandbox by default for filesystem loading. This can be optionally disabled if required. The `-sandbox` option has been deprecated and is now divided into two new options: `-lfa` (allow local file access) which is enabled by default and `-lna` (restrict local network access) which can be enabled by users optionally. The `-lfa` allows file (payload) access anywhere on the system (disabling sandbox effectively), and `-lna` blocks connections to the local/private network.

  • LOW
  • NETWORK
  • NONE
  • UNCHANGED
  • NONE
  • NONE
  • HIGH
  • NONE

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