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Fencer Vulns
medium 4.3

CVE-2008-2938 json

Apache Tomcat Directory Traversal vulnerability

published 2008-08-13 18 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also GHSA-m7xj-ccqc-p4g2 , EUVD-2022-4516

cvss
4.3
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
99.7%
EPSS 99.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 99.9%
public exploits
4
Metasploit, Exploit-DB

Summary

Directory traversal vulnerability in Apache Tomcat 4.1.0 through 4.1.37, 5.5.0 through 5.5.26, and 6.0.0 through 6.0.16, when allowLinking and UTF-8 are enabled, allows remote attackers to read arbitrary files via encoded directory traversal sequences in the URI, a different vulnerability than CVE-2008-2370. NOTE: versions earlier than 6.0.18 were reported affected, but the vendor advisory lists 6.0.16 as the last affected version.

Patch / fix

  • maven org.apache.tomcat:tomcat 4.1.39, 5.5.27, 6.0.18
  • tomcat5 network satellite 5.1, network satellite 5.0 5.0.30-0jpp_12rh
  • jbossweb jboss enterprise application platform 4.3.0, jboss enterprise application platform 4.2.0 2.0.0-5.CP07.0jpp.ep1.1.el4
  • jbossweb jboss enterprise application platform 4.3.0, jboss enterprise application platform 4.2.0 2.0.0-5.CP07.0jpp.ep1.1.el5
  • tomcat5 RHEL 3 DEVELOPER_SUITE 5.5.23-0jpp_12rh
  • tomcat5-jasper RHEL 3 DEVELOPER_SUITE 5.5.23-0jpp_12rh
  • tomcat5-common-lib RHEL 3 DEVELOPER_SUITE 5.5.23-0jpp_12rh
  • tomcat5-server-lib RHEL 3 DEVELOPER_SUITE 5.5.23-0jpp_12rh
  • tomcat5-jsp-2.0-api RHEL 3 DEVELOPER_SUITE 5.5.23-0jpp_12rh

red hat advisories RHSA-2008:1007RHSA-2008:0877RHSA-2008:0864RHSA-2008:0862RHSA-2008:0648

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2008-2938 updated

tomcat Unicode directory traversal vulnerability

  • Red Hat Application Server v2 4AS tomcat5 5.5.23-0jpp_4rh.9, tomcat5-jasper 5.5.23-0jpp_4rh.9, tomcat5-webapps 5.5.23-0jpp_4rh.9, tomcat5-common-lib 5.5.23-0jpp_4rh.9, tomcat5-server-lib 5.5.23-0jpp_4rh.9, tomcat5-jsp-2.0-api 5.5.23-0jpp_4rh.9, +5 more Red Hat Application Server v2 4ES tomcat5 5.5.23-0jpp_4rh.9, tomcat5-jasper 5.5.23-0jpp_4rh.9, tomcat5-webapps 5.5.23-0jpp_4rh.9, tomcat5-common-lib 5.5.23-0jpp_4rh.9, tomcat5-server-lib 5.5.23-0jpp_4rh.9, tomcat5-jsp-2.0-api 5.5.23-0jpp_4rh.9, +5 more Red Hat Application Server v2 4WS tomcat5 5.5.23-0jpp_4rh.9, tomcat5-jasper 5.5.23-0jpp_4rh.9, tomcat5-webapps 5.5.23-0jpp_4rh.9, tomcat5-common-lib 5.5.23-0jpp_4rh.9, tomcat5-server-lib 5.5.23-0jpp_4rh.9, tomcat5-jsp-2.0-api 5.5.23-0jpp_4rh.9, +5 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2008:0862
  • Red Hat Developer Suite v.3 (AS v.4) tomcat5 5.5.23-0jpp_12rh, tomcat5-jasper 5.5.23-0jpp_12rh, tomcat5-common-lib 5.5.23-0jpp_12rh, tomcat5-server-lib 5.5.23-0jpp_12rh, tomcat5-jsp-2.0-api 5.5.23-0jpp_12rh, tomcat5-servlet-2.4-api 5.5.23-0jpp_12rh
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2008:0864
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server) tomcat5 5.5.23-0jpp.7.el5_2.1, tomcat5-jasper 5.5.23-0jpp.7.el5_2.1, tomcat5-webapps 5.5.23-0jpp.7.el5_2.1, tomcat5-common-lib 5.5.23-0jpp.7.el5_2.1, tomcat5-server-lib 5.5.23-0jpp.7.el5_2.1, tomcat5-jsp-2.0-api 5.5.23-0jpp.7.el5_2.1, +5 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client) tomcat5 5.5.23-0jpp.7.el5_2.1, tomcat5-jasper 5.5.23-0jpp.7.el5_2.1, tomcat5-webapps 5.5.23-0jpp.7.el5_2.1, tomcat5-common-lib 5.5.23-0jpp.7.el5_2.1, tomcat5-server-lib 5.5.23-0jpp.7.el5_2.1, tomcat5-jsp-2.0-api 5.5.23-0jpp.7.el5_2.1, +5 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop Workstation (v. 5 client) tomcat5 5.5.23-0jpp.7.el5_2.1, tomcat5-jasper 5.5.23-0jpp.7.el5_2.1, tomcat5-webapps 5.5.23-0jpp.7.el5_2.1, tomcat5-common-lib 5.5.23-0jpp.7.el5_2.1, tomcat5-server-lib 5.5.23-0jpp.7.el5_2.1, tomcat5-jsp-2.0-api 5.5.23-0jpp.7.el5_2.1, +5 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2008:0648
  • Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 4.2.0 for RHEL 4 AS jbossweb 2.0.0-5.CP07.0jpp.ep1.1.el4 Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 4.2.0 for RHEL 4 ES jbossweb 2.0.0-5.CP07.0jpp.ep1.1.el4 Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 4.2.0 for RHEL 5 Server jbossweb 2.0.0-5.CP07.0jpp.ep1.1.el5 Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 4.3.0 for RHEL 4 AS jbossweb 2.0.0-5.CP07.0jpp.ep1.1.el4 Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 4.3.0 for RHEL 4 ES jbossweb 2.0.0-5.CP07.0jpp.ep1.1.el4 Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 4.3.0 for RHEL 5 Server jbossweb 2.0.0-5.CP07.0jpp.ep1.1.el5
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2008:0877
  • Red Hat Satellite 5.0 (RHEL v.4 AS) tomcat5 5.0.30-0jpp_12rh Red Hat Satellite 5.1 (RHEL v.4 AS) tomcat5 5.0.30-0jpp_12rh
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2008:1007

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Timeline

  1. First public exploit (EDB-6229)
  2. Published

Exploit prediction

99.71% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 99.9% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 4.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
maven org.apache.tomcat:tomcat
>=4.1.0, <4.1.39
>=5.5.0, <5.5.27
>=6.0.0, <6.0.18
4.1.39
5.5.27
6.0.18

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.