CWE-39: Path Traversal: 'C:dirname'

Executive Impact

• Integrity,Confidentiality,Availability: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands: The attacker may be able to create or overwrite critical files that are used to execute code, such as programs or libraries.
• Integrity: Modify Files or Directories: The attacker may be able to overwrite or create critical files, such as programs, libraries, or important data. If the targeted file is used for a security mechanism, then the attacker may be able to bypass that mechanism. For example, appending a new account at the end of a password file may allow an attacker to bypass authentication.
• Confidentiality: Read Files or Directories: The attacker may be able read the contents of unexpected files and expose sensitive data. If the targeted file is used for a security mechanism, then the attacker may be able to bypass that mechanism. For example, by reading a password file, the attacker could conduct brute force password guessing attacks in order to break into an account on the system.
• Availability: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart: The attacker may be able to overwrite, delete, or corrupt unexpected critical files such as programs, libraries, or important data. This may prevent the software from working at all and in the case of a protection mechanisms such as authentication, it has the potential to lockout every user of the software.

Developer Pattern

CWE-39 is the kind of defect developers can usually prevent with explicit validation, safer framework defaults, and tests that exercise hostile input or unsafe state transitions.

Confidence

high confidence from CWE-39, 4.20.