CVE-2022-23457

ESAPI (The OWASP Enterprise Security API) is a free, open source, web application security control library. Prior to version 2.3.0.0, the default implementation of Validator.getValidDirectoryPath(String, String, File, boolean) may incorrectly treat the tested input string as a child of the specified parent directory. This potentially could allow control-flow bypass checks to be defeated if an attack can specify the entire string representing the 'input' path. This vulnerability is patched in release 2.3.0.0 of ESAPI. As a workaround, it is possible to write one's own implementation of the Validator interface. However, maintainers do not recommend this.

ESAPI (The OWASP Enterprise Security API) is a free, open source, web application security control library. Prior to version 2.3.0.0, the default implementation of Validator.getValidDirectoryPath(String, String, File, boolean) may incorrectly treat the tested input string as a child of the specified parent directory. This potentially could allow control-flow bypass checks to be defeated if an attack can specify the entire string representing the 'input' path. This vulnerability is patched in release 2.3.0.0 of ESAPI. As a workaround, it is possible to write one's own implementation of the Validator interface. However, maintainers do not recommend this.

Impact

The default implementation of Validator.getValidDirectoryPath(String, String, File, boolean) may incorrectly treat the tested input string as a child of the specified parent directory. This potentially could allow control-flow bypass checks to be defeated if an attack can specify the entire string representing the 'input' path.

Patches

This vulnerability is patched in release 2.3.0.0 of ESAPI. See https://github.com/ESAPI/esapi-java-legacy/releases/tag/esapi-2.3.0.0 for details.

Workarounds

Yes; in theory, one could write the own implementation of the Validator interface. This would most easily be done by sub-classing a version of the affected DefaultValidator class and then overriding the affected getValidDirectoryPath() to correct the issue. However, this is not recommended.

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

• Email one of the project co-leaders. See email addresses listed on the OWASP ESAPI wiki page, under "Leaders".
• Send email to one of the two ESAPI related Google Groups listed under Where to Find More Information on ESAPI on our README.md page.

ESAPI (The OWASP Enterprise Security API) is a free, open source, web application security control library. Prior to version 2.3.0.0, the default implementation of Validator.getValidDirectoryPath(String, String, File, boolean) may incorrectly treat the tested input string as a child of the specified parent directory. This potentially could allow control-flow bypass checks to be defeated if an attack can specify the entire string representing the 'input' path. This vulnerability is patched in release 2.3.0.0 of ESAPI. As a workaround, it is possible to write one's own implementation of the Validator interface. However, maintainers do not recommend this.

ESAPI (The OWASP Enterprise Security API) is a free, open source, web application security control library. Prior to version 2.3.0.0, the default implementation of Validator.getValidDirectoryPath(String, String, File, boolean) may incorrectly treat the tested input string as a child of the specified parent directory. This potentially could allow control-flow bypass checks to be defeated if an attack can specify the entire string representing the 'input' path. This vulnerability is patched in release 2.3.0.0 of ESAPI. As a workaround, it is possible to write one's own implementation of the Validator interface. However, maintainers do not recommend this.

ESAPI (The OWASP Enterprise Security API) is a free, open source, web application security control library. Prior to version 2.3.0.0, the default implementation of Validator.getValidDirectoryPath(String, String, File, boolean) may incorrectly treat the tested input string as a child of the specified parent directory. This potentially could allow control-flow bypass checks to be defeated if an attack can specify the entire string representing the 'input' path. This vulnerability is patched in release 2.3.0.0 of ESAPI. As a workaround, it is possible to write one's own implementation of the Validator interface. However, maintainers do not recommend this.

Impact

The default implementation of Validator.getValidDirectoryPath(String, String, File, boolean) may incorrectly treat the tested input string as a child of the specified parent directory. This potentially could allow control-flow bypass checks to be defeated if an attack can specify the entire string representing the 'input' path.

Patches

This vulnerability is patched in release 2.3.0.0 of ESAPI. See https://github.com/ESAPI/esapi-java-legacy/releases/tag/esapi-2.3.0.0 for details.

Workarounds

Yes; in theory, one could write the own implementation of the Validator interface. This would most easily be done by sub-classing a version of the affected DefaultValidator class and then overriding the affected getValidDirectoryPath() to correct the issue. However, this is not recommended.

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

• Email one of the project co-leaders. See email addresses listed on the OWASP ESAPI wiki page, under "Leaders".
• Send email to one of the two ESAPI related Google Groups listed under Where to Find More Information on ESAPI on our README.md page.

ESAPI (The OWASP Enterprise Security API) is a free, open source, web application security control library. Prior to version 2.3.0.0, the default implementation of Validator.getValidDirectoryPath(String, String, File, boolean) may incorrectly treat the tested input string as a child of the specified parent directory. This potentially could allow control-flow bypass checks to be defeated if an attack can specify the entire string representing the 'input' path. This vulnerability is patched in release 2.3.0.0 of ESAPI. As a workaround, it is possible to write one's own implementation of the Validator interface. However, maintainers do not recommend this.

Jaroslav Lobačevski discovered that ESAPI incorrectly validated directory paths during path verification. An attacker could possibly use this issue to bypass directory validation checks, leading to control-flow bypass. This issue only affected Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. (CVE-2022-23457)

Kevin W. Wall and Sebastian Passaro discovered that ESAPI did not properly sanitize javascript URLs because of an incorrect regular expression. An attacker could possibly use this issue to perform a cross-site scripting attack. This issue only affected Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. (CVE-2022-24891)

Longlong Gong discovered that ESAPI did not properly neutralize special elements during SQL injection defense. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to perform SQL injection. (CVE-2025-5878)