CWE · MITRE source

CWE-27Path Traversal: 'dir/../../filename'

Abstraction: Variant · CVEs in our corpus: 29

The product uses external input to construct a pathname that should be within a restricted directory, but it does not properly neutralize multiple internal "../" sequences that can resolve to a location that is outside of that directory.

This allows attackers to traverse the file system to access files or directories that are outside of the restricted directory. The 'directory/../../filename' manipulation is useful for bypassing some path traversal protection schemes. Sometimes a program only removes one "../" sequence, so multiple "../" can bypass that check. Alternately, this manipulation could be used to bypass a check for "../" at the beginning of the pathname, moving up more than one directory level.

Last updated: 22 August 2026 14:14 UTC