Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:HSummary
CVE-2026-34728 is a high-severity Path Traversal (CWE-22) vulnerability in Phpmyfaq Phpmyfaq. Its CVSS base score is 8.7 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 50th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); 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.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
CVE-2026-34728 is a path traversal vulnerability in phpMyFAQ, an open source FAQ web application, affecting versions prior to 4.1.1. The issue lies in the MediaBrowserController::index() method, which processes file deletion requests in the media browser. When the fileRemove action is triggered, it concatenates a user-supplied name parameter directly with the base upload directory path without validating for path traversal. The applied FILTER_SANITIZE_SPECIAL_CHARS filter only encodes HTML special characters and those with ASCII values below 32, failing to block sequences like ../. The endpoint also lacks CSRF token validation, enabling cross-site request forgery exploitation.
Attackers require low privileges, such as those of an authenticated user (PR:L), and can exploit this remotely over the network (AV:N) with low complexity (AC:L), though user interaction is needed (UI:R), typically via CSRF. By supplying a malicious name parameter with traversal payloads, they can delete arbitrary files beyond the upload directory, achieving high integrity and availability impacts (I:H/A:H) with a changed scope (S:C) but no confidentiality loss (C:N). The vulnerability carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 8.7 and maps to CWE-22 (Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory).
phpMyFAQ has patched this vulnerability in version 4.1.1. Administrators should upgrade to this release or later to mitigate the issue. Additional details are available in the GitHub security advisory GHSA-38m8-xrfj-v38x and the release notes for version 4.1.1.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-18258
Vulnerability Data
phpMyFAQ is an open source FAQ web application. Prior to version 4.1.1, the MediaBrowserController::index() method handles file deletion for the media browser. When the fileRemove action is triggered, the user-supplied name parameter is concatenated with the base upload directory path…
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without any path traversal validation. The FILTER_SANITIZE_SPECIAL_CHARS filter only encodes HTML special characters (&, ', ", <, >) and characters with ASCII value < 32, and does not prevent directory traversal sequences like ../. Additionally, the endpoint does not validate CSRF tokens, making it exploitable via CSRF attacks. This issue has been patched in version 4.1.1.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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V5.3.2
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Enforces the intended directory access authorizations that path traversal would otherwise bypass.
Input validation directly neutralizes special path elements before pathname construction occurs.
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.
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.
Security testing in development catches path traversal via static/dynamic analysis.
Secure SDLC mandates input validation and path sanitization that directly prevent path traversal.
Application security requirements include rules for safe file handling and canonicalization.
Secure architecture principles require least-privilege file access and directory isolation.
Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe path construction and mandate safe APIs.
Information access restriction limits which files an application may read or write.