CVE-2021-29474 json
Relative Path Traversal Attack on note creation
published 2021-04-26 5 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-16082
- cvss
- 4.7
- version 3.1, CNA
- cisa kev
- Not listed
- not in CISA's catalog
- epss
- 1.6%
- EPSS 1.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 75%
- public exploits
- 0
- none known
Summary
HedgeDoc (formerly known as CodiMD) is an open-source collaborative markdown editor. An attacker can read arbitrary `.md` files from the server's filesystem due to an improper input validation, which results in the ability to perform a relative path traversal. To verify if you are affected, you can try to open the following URL: `http://localhost:3000/..%2F..%2FREADME#` (replace `http://localhost:3000` with your instance's base-URL e.g. `https://demo.hedgedoc.org/..%2F..%2FREADME#`). If you see a README page being rendered, you run an affected version. The attack works due the fact that the internal router passes the url-encoded alias to the `noteController.showNote`-function. This function passes the input directly to findNote() utility function, that will pass it on the the parseNoteId()-function, that tries to make sense out of the noteId/alias and check if a note already exists and if so, if a corresponding file on disk was updated. If no note exists the note creation-function is called, which pass this unvalidated alias, with a `.md` appended, into a path.join()-function which is read from the filesystem in the follow up routine and provides the pre-filled content of the new note. This allows an attacker to not only read arbitrary `.md` files from the filesystem, but also observes changes to them. The usefulness of this attack can be considered limited, since mainly markdown files are use the file-ending `.md` and all markdown files contained in the hedgedoc project, like the README, are public anyway. If other protections such as a chroot or container or proper file permissions are in place, this attack's usefulness is rather limited. On a reverse-proxy level one can force a URL-decode, which will prevent this attack because the router will not accept such a path.
Patch / fix
Exploit prediction
1.60% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 75% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).
Exploits and checks
- github.com https://github.com/hedgedoc/hedgedoc/security/advisories/GHSA-p528-555r-pf87 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
CVSS scores
| assigned by | version | score | vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| CNA | 3.1 | 4.7 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N |
| NVD | 3.1 | 5.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N |
| NVD | 2.0 | 5.0 | AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N |
Affected products
- hedgedoc hedgedoc
Classification
References
-
github.com
/hedgedoc/hedgedoc/security/advisories/GHSA-p528-555r-pf87
exploit, patch, third-party-advisory
Sources
- CVE List CVE-2021-29474
- NVD CVE-2021-29474
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