CVE-2026-48796

CefSharp provides .NET bindings for the Chromium Embedded Framework for Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation applications. Prior to version 148.0.90, CefSharp/SchemeHandler/FolderSchemeHandlerFactory.cs used filePath.StartsWith(rootFolder, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) to decide whether a decoded and canonicalized request path remained inside rootFolder. That raw prefix test did not enforce a directory boundary, so a request such as ..%2fwww2/secret.txt could escape a configured www directory into a sibling www2 directory whose path shared the same string prefix. Applications that register FolderSchemeHandlerFactory for a custom scheme or an HTTP or HTTPS scheme can therefore serve local files outside the intended root when an attacker can cause the embedded browser to request the crafted URL. The issue affects both Unix-style paths such as /tmp/app/www2 and Windows paths such as C:\app\www2, and the fix appends a directory separator to the normalized root before comparison while rejecting null bytes and alternate data stream syntax. This issue is fixed in version 148.0.90.

CefSharp provides .NET bindings for the Chromium Embedded Framework for Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation applications. Prior to version 148.0.90, CefSharp/SchemeHandler/FolderSchemeHandlerFactory.cs used filePath.StartsWith(rootFolder, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) to decide whether a decoded and canonicalized request path remained inside rootFolder. That raw prefix test did not enforce a directory boundary, so a request such as ..%2fwww2/secret.txt could escape a configured www directory into a sibling www2 directory whose path shared the same string prefix. Applications that register FolderSchemeHandlerFactory for a custom scheme or an HTTP or HTTPS scheme can therefore serve local files outside the intended root when an attacker can cause the embedded browser to request the crafted URL. The issue affects both Unix-style paths such as /tmp/app/www2 and Windows paths such as C:\app\www2, and the fix appends a directory separator to the normalized root before comparison while rejecting null bytes and alternate data stream syntax. This issue is fixed in version 148.0.90.

Summary

FolderSchemeHandlerFactory was intended to restrict served files to a configured rootFolder, but its path validation used a raw string prefix check. A request could escape to a sibling directory whose full path starts with the root folder path, allowing files outside the configured root to be served.

Details

In affected versions, FolderSchemeHandlerFactory canonicalized rootFolder, decoded the request path, combined it with the root, and then allowed the file when:

filePath.StartsWith(rootFolder, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)

This does not enforce a directory boundary. For example, /tmp/app/www2/secret.txt starts with /tmp/app/www, but www2 is a sibling of www, not a child. The same issue applies on Windows, for example C:\app\www2\secret.txt starts with C:\app\www.

The affected code was reviewed at commit b5fef3bb4bc58798c95170078c41de92cfe9066e, assembly version 147.0.100.

PoC

Set rootFolder to a directory named www and create a sibling directory named www2:

<temp>/www/index.html
<temp>/www2/secret.txt

Register FolderSchemeHandlerFactory for <temp>/www, then request:

https://folderschemehandlerfactory.test/..%2fwww2/secret.txt

The request path is URL-decoded to ../www2/secret.txt, combined with <temp>/www, and canonicalized to:

<temp>/www2/secret.txt

Because <temp>/www2/secret.txt starts with <temp>/www as a string prefix, the affected check passes and secret.txt is served from outside rootFolder.

Expected vulnerable result: HTTP 200 with the contents of <temp>/www2/secret.txt.

Expected fixed result: 404 or equivalent not-found response because the resolved file is outside rootFolder.

Impact

Applications using FolderSchemeHandlerFactory for a custom scheme or registered HTTP/HTTPS scheme may expose local files outside the intended served directory. This is most relevant when sensitive sibling directories share the root path prefix, such as www/www2, public/public_backup, or static/static-secrets.

An attacker must be able to cause the embedded browser to request URLs handled by the affected scheme registration.

CefSharp provides .NET bindings for the Chromium Embedded Framework for Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation applications. Prior to version 148.0.90, CefSharp/SchemeHandler/FolderSchemeHandlerFactory.cs used filePath.StartsWith(rootFolder, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) to decide whether a decoded and canonicalized request path remained inside rootFolder. That raw prefix test did not enforce a directory boundary, so a request such as ..%2fwww2/secret.txt could escape a configured www directory into a sibling www2 directory whose path shared the same string prefix. Applications that register FolderSchemeHandlerFactory for a custom scheme or an HTTP or HTTPS scheme can therefore serve local files outside the intended root when an attacker can cause the embedded browser to request the crafted URL. The issue affects both Unix-style paths such as /tmp/app/www2 and Windows paths such as C:\app\www2, and the fix appends a directory separator to the normalized root before comparison while rejecting null bytes and alternate data stream syntax. This issue is fixed in version 148.0.90.

CefSharp provides .NET bindings for the Chromium Embedded Framework for Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation applications. Prior to version 148.0.90, CefSharp/SchemeHandler/FolderSchemeHandlerFactory.cs used filePath.StartsWith(rootFolder, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) to decide whether a decoded and canonicalized request path remained inside rootFolder. That raw prefix test did not enforce a directory boundary, so a request such as ..%2fwww2/secret.txt could escape a configured www directory into a sibling www2 directory whose path shared the same string prefix. Applications that register FolderSchemeHandlerFactory for a custom scheme or an HTTP or HTTPS scheme can therefore serve local files outside the intended root when an attacker can cause the embedded browser to request the crafted URL. The issue affects both Unix-style paths such as /tmp/app/www2 and Windows paths such as C:\app\www2, and the fix appends a directory separator to the normalized root before comparison while rejecting null bytes and alternate data stream syntax. This issue is fixed in version 148.0.90.

Summary

FolderSchemeHandlerFactory was intended to restrict served files to a configured rootFolder, but its path validation used a raw string prefix check. A request could escape to a sibling directory whose full path starts with the root folder path, allowing files outside the configured root to be served.

Details

In affected versions, FolderSchemeHandlerFactory canonicalized rootFolder, decoded the request path, combined it with the root, and then allowed the file when:

filePath.StartsWith(rootFolder, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)

This does not enforce a directory boundary. For example, /tmp/app/www2/secret.txt starts with /tmp/app/www, but www2 is a sibling of www, not a child. The same issue applies on Windows, for example C:\app\www2\secret.txt starts with C:\app\www.

The affected code was reviewed at commit b5fef3bb4bc58798c95170078c41de92cfe9066e, assembly version 147.0.100.

PoC

Set rootFolder to a directory named www and create a sibling directory named www2:

<temp>/www/index.html
<temp>/www2/secret.txt

Register FolderSchemeHandlerFactory for <temp>/www, then request:

https://folderschemehandlerfactory.test/..%2fwww2/secret.txt

The request path is URL-decoded to ../www2/secret.txt, combined with <temp>/www, and canonicalized to:

<temp>/www2/secret.txt

Because <temp>/www2/secret.txt starts with <temp>/www as a string prefix, the affected check passes and secret.txt is served from outside rootFolder.

Expected vulnerable result: HTTP 200 with the contents of <temp>/www2/secret.txt.

Expected fixed result: 404 or equivalent not-found response because the resolved file is outside rootFolder.

Impact

Applications using FolderSchemeHandlerFactory for a custom scheme or registered HTTP/HTTPS scheme may expose local files outside the intended served directory. This is most relevant when sensitive sibling directories share the root path prefix, such as www/www2, public/public_backup, or static/static-secrets.

An attacker must be able to cause the embedded browser to request URLs handled by the affected scheme registration.