Absolute path traversal vulnerability in GNU Wget before 1.16, when recursion is enabled, allows remote FTP servers to write to arbitrary fi

Affected versions

NVD version ranges (for catalog products). Add the product to your stack with a version and matching uses these.

• gnu wgetup to 1.15 inclusive
• gnu wget1.12
• gnu wget1.13
• gnu wget1.13.1
• gnu wget1.13.2
• gnu wget1.13.3
• gnu wget1.13.4
• gnu wget1.14

Package-level exposure

OSV and GitHub Advisory data: ecosystem, package and range. SBOM matching uses this table.

Other highest-scoring records for the same primary product.

• CVE-2017-13089GNU Wget: stack overflow in HTTP protocol handling
  59Plan
• CVE-2016-4971GNU wget before 1.18 allows remote servers to write to arbitrary files by redirecting a request from HTTP to a crafted FTP resource.
  49Plan
• CVE-2017-13090GNU Wget: heap overflow in HTTP protocol handling
  46Plan
• CVE-2019-5953Buffer overflow in GNU Wget 1.20.1 and earlier allows remote attackers to cause a denial-of-service (DoS) or may execute an arbitrary code v
  41Plan
• CVE-2024-38428url.c in GNU Wget through 1.24.5 mishandles semicolons in the userinfo subcomponent of a URI, and thus there may be insecure behavior in whi
  36Monitor
• CVE-2026-58469GNU Wget 1.25.0 Heap Buffer Underread via Metalink URL Parsing
  34Monitor

FIRST EPSS daily score; only changes of 0.01 or more are recorded (step chart).

Root cause

A user-supplied file name is joined with the allowed directory, but the result is never checked to confirm it is still inside that directory.

A representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.

1const file = path.join(ROOT, req.query.name);2res.sendFile(file);

1const file = path.resolve(ROOT, req.query.name);2if (!file.startsWith(ROOT + path.sep)) {3  return res.sendStatus(400);4}5res.sendFile(file);

Attack context

MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.