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Fencer Vulns
high 7.5

CVE-2023-40274 json

zola Path Traversal vulnerability

published 2023-08-14 3 y ago modified 2026-09-10 1 mo ago also GHSA-xvv9-5j67-3rpq , EUVD-2023-2384

cvss
7.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.1%
EPSS 1.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 65%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

An issue was discovered in zola 0.13.0 through 0.17.2. The custom implementation of a web server, available via the "zola serve" command, allows directory traversal. The handle_request function, used by the server to process HTTP requests, does not account for sequences of special path control characters (../) in the URL when serving a file, which allows one to escape the webroot of the server and read arbitrary files from the filesystem.

Patch / fix

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

1.10% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 65% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/getzola/zola/issues/2257 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
GitHub 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
crates.io zola
>=0.13.0, <=0.17.2
no fix listed

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.