Security Resilience

CVE-2026-42028

Path Traversal

Path Traversal
Published
08 May 2026
Modified
26 October 2026
CVSS Score v3.1 5.3
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0040 34th percentile
Risk Priority 44 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). EPSS, Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), epss.first.org. Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2026-42028 is a medium-severity Path Traversal (CWE-22) vulnerability. Its CVSS base score is 5.3 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow (T1003.008); ranked at the 34th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

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)

A01:2025 Broken Access Control

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

novaGallery is a php image gallery. Prior to version 2.1.1, a path traversal vulnerability has been identified in novaGallery. This allows unauthenticated users to read image files outside the intended gallery root directory. This issue has been patched in version…

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2.1.1.

CWE(s)
CWE-22

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

MITRE ATT&CK v20.0

T1003.008 /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to dump the contents of <code>/etc/passwd</code> and <code>/etc/shadow</code> to enable offline password cracking.
attack.mitre.org →
T1087 Account Discovery Discovery
Adversaries may attempt to get a listing of valid accounts, usernames, or email addresses on a system or within a compromised environment.
attack.mitre.org →
T1554 Compromise Host Software Binary Persistence
Adversaries may modify host software binaries to establish persistent access to systems.
attack.mitre.org →
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
attack.mitre.org →
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
attack.mitre.org →
T1210 Exploitation of Remote Services Lateral Movement
Adversaries may exploit remote services to gain unauthorized access to internal systems once inside of a network.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2021-22005Shared CWE-22
CVE-2025-30271Shared CWE-22
CVE-2023-3241Shared CWE-22
CVE-2026-39859Shared CWE-22
CVE-2026-44650Shared CWE-22
CVE-2023-46645Shared CWE-22
CVE-2024-54132Shared CWE-22
CVE-2004-0847Shared CWE-22
CVE-2025-5964Shared CWE-22
CVE-2026-44996Shared CWE-22

Affected Assets

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

—

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V5.3.2

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)

Our mappings, made for this CVE.

AC-3 Access Enforcement good match

Enforces the intended directory access authorizations that path traversal would otherwise bypass.

SI-10 Information Input Validation good match

Input validation directly neutralizes special path elements before pathname construction occurs.

AC-6 Least Privilege partial match

Least privilege reduces the impact of any unauthorized file access obtained via traversal.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0)

Our mappings, derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our CWE→CSF cross-walk — links open the control.

PR.PS-02 partial match
blocks

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.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A)

Our mappings, derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our CWE→ISO cross-walk — links open the control.

A.8.29 Security testing in development and acceptance mostly match
finds

Security testing in development catches path traversal via static/dynamic analysis.

A.8.28 Secure coding partial match
prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe path construction and mandate safe APIs.

A.8.8 Management of technical vulnerabilities partial match
finds

A.8.8's reach is DISCLOSURE — it sees only instances that carry a vendor-published flaw. Path traversal commonly surfaces as CVEs in third-party components (many examples in the CWE-22 record), so A.8.8 finds that disclosed share; first-party path-traversal defects in the organization's own code are invisible to vulnerability scanning and management, which is the same remainder that caps A.8.8 -> CWE-89 at `partial`.

References