Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:NSummary
CVE-2023-52138 is a high-severity Path Traversal: '/../filedir' (CWE-25) vulnerability in Mate-Desktop Engrampa. Its CVSS base score is 8.2 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Path Interception (T1034); ranked in the top 26% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-56811
Vulnerability Data
Engrampa is an archive manager for the MATE environment. Engrampa is found to be vulnerable to a Path Traversal vulnerability that can be leveraged to achieve full Remote Command Execution (RCE) on the target. While handling CPIO archives, the Engrampa…
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Archive manager follows symlink, cpio by default will follow stored symlinks while extracting and the Archiver will not check the symlink location, which leads to arbitrary file writes to unintended locations. When the victim extracts the archive, the attacker can craft a malicious cpio or ISO archive to achieve RCE on the target system. This vulnerability was fixed in commit 63d5dfa.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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V5.3.2V15.4.2
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Enforces the intended directory access authorizations that path traversal would otherwise bypass.
Input validation directly neutralizes path traversal sequences such as '/../' in externally supplied filenames before they are used to construct paths.
Information flow enforcement can block unauthorized data flows that would result from a successful path traversal.
Least privilege reduces the impact of any unauthorized file access obtained via traversal.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Secure SDLC practices directly require input validation and path sanitization that prevent traversal flaws.
Patching/maintenance can remediate known path-traversal flaws in deployed software (partial prevention of exploitability) but does nothing to stop the coding defect from being introduced in the first place.
PR.AA-05 defines and reviews access policies but does not address code-level pathname neutralization, so neither direction prevents CWE-22.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Secure coding standards require canonicalization and neutralization of '../' sequences in path construction.
Security testing in development catches path-traversal flaws before production deployment.
Secure development lifecycle mandates input validation and path sanitization that directly prevents traversal sequences.
Application security requirements explicitly call for controls against path traversal and directory escape attacks.
Secure architecture principles reduce exposure to path traversal through least-privilege file-system design.
Information access restriction limits which directories users or processes may traverse.