Apache PDFBox Examples: Path Traversal in PDFBox ExtractEmbeddedFiles Example Code

Affected versions

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

• apache pdfbox-examples2.0.24 and later · up to 2.0.36 inclusive
• apache pdfbox-examples3.0.0 and later · up to 3.0.7 inclusive

Versions reported by the vendor

Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (apache). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.

• Apache Software Foundation Apache PDFBox Examples

  • 2.0.24 and later · up to and including 2.0.35affected · semver
  • 3.0.0 and later · up to and including 3.0.6affected · semver

Package-level exposure

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

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.