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Rclone EUVDEUVD-2026-109449

| CVE-2026-116191 HIGH
Path Traversal (CWE-22)
2026-10-25 VulnCheck GHSA-4fcc-gp7q-gf9r
8.7
CVSS 4.0 · Vendor: VulnCheck
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Attack ChainAIDerived

Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain

  1. Access
    Reach exposed unauthenticated serve webdav endpoint
  2. Delivery
    Send MKCOL /.. to plant VFS node
  3. Exploit
    Issue PUT/MOVE/COPY/MKCOL with /../ prefix
  4. Execution
    Write above served root or into sibling tenant
  5. Impact
    Overwrite or delete other tenants' files

Vulnerability Assessment

Weakness
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A01:2025 - Broken Access Control
ASVS 5.0
V5 - File Handling Path canonicalization, traversal prevention
MITRE ATT&CK

2 techniques across 2 tactics: Discovery, Collection

The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up.

Exploitation Conditions

Requires that 'rclone serve webdav' be running and reachable by the attacker; the advisory states this is the one front-end in cmd/serve/ lacking a path guard (serve restic/s3/docker have rclone's own guard, and serve ftp/sftp/nfs are confined by third-party libraries), so serve ftp/sftp/http/webdav-style backends that join root-with-remote before encoding are the ones that resolve the '..' away. No authentication is needed (PR:N confirmed by the CVSS vector) and it works against default configurations - default --dir-cache-time is 5 minutes and the poisoned node is trivially re-planted, so there is no timing window to miss. Exploitation is write-oriented only: creation, overwrite, MOVE/COPY-out, PROPPATCH, and (after a client PUT) deletion by known name all succeed above the root, but reading or enumerating files the attacker did not itself write is refused (GET/PROPFIND return 404) because the read path runs entries through RemoteEscapesRoot/RemoveEscaping. The practical limiter on impact is deployment: the flaw is only meaningful where untrusted clients can reach the WebDAV listener and share a backend root with other tenants' data.

Impact

This is a genuine, near-term priority rather than a high-CVSS-but-low-real-risk issue. The CVSS 4.0 vector (AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N) is confirmed by the input and is fully consistent with the mechanism the GHSA advisory describes: two unauthenticated HTTP requests (MKCOL /.. then a write verb) succeed against a default 'rclone serve webdav' deployment with no authentication, no user interaction, and low complexity. Impact is scoped to integrity (VI:H) - the advisory shows the read path is closed by rclone's own August fix (GET/PROPFIND above the root return 404), so there is no confidentiality loss (VC:N), and availability of the service is not directly degraded (VA:N), though arbitrary file overwrite/deletion of other tenants' data is a serious integrity consequence. The vuln.today decision label is 'this_week', reported by VulnCheck, which signals elevated but not emergency urgency. No CISA KEV listing is present in the input and no EPSS score was supplied, so there is no evidence of active or widespread exploitation at this time - the priority rests on the trivial exploitability and the detailed, reproducible write-up rather than on observed in-the-wild activity. The main factor that moderates real-world risk is exposure: the flaw only matters where 'serve webdav' is actually reachable by untrusted clients (notably multi-tenant or shared-root setups), not for the far more common use of rclone as a local sync CLI.

Exploit ScenarioDerived

An attacker who can reach an exposed, unauthenticated 'rclone serve webdav' instance sends MKCOL /.. to plant a VFS directory node whose backend path is literally '..', then issues PUT/MOVE/COPY/MKCOL/DELETE requests prefixed with /../ to create, overwrite, or delete files above the served root - including files belonging to other tenants sharing the same backend. The GHSA advisory includes a full, executed reproduction (against released binary v1.75.1 and a master build), so a working proof-of-concept is documented in detail. Because the planted node is low-complexity and re-plantable in one request, the write succeeds reliably whenever the MKCOL immediately precedes the write.

This Week Schedule remediation this week. Why: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9).
Patch available 0.4% exploitation probability (EPSS)

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AnalysisAIv1 – Oct 25, 2026

Path traversal in rclone's serve webdav front-end, in every build up to and including 1.75.1, lets remote unauthenticated attackers write outside the directory rclone was told to serve: a single MKCOL /.. request plants a VFS node whose backend path is literally .., after which PUT, MOVE, COPY, MKCOL and DELETE all resolve above the served root - creating, overwriting, moving out and (by known name, after a client PUT) deleting other tenants' files. Impact is integrity-only: reads and enumeration above the root still fail with 404 because the read path filters entries through the existing RemoteEscapesRoot/RemoveEscaping predicate while the write path never asks it. Vendor-released patch: 1.75.2; the GitHub advisory carries detailed public reproduction steps (a public PoC reference exists, not verified as working exploit code), there is no CISA KEV confirmation of active exploitation in the supplied data, and the vuln.today priority label is this_week.

RemediationAI

Upgrade to rclone 1.75.2, the vendor-released fix for the Go module github.com/rclone/rclone (previously <= 1.75.1); see the advisory at https://github.com/rclone/rclone/security/advisories/GHSA-44pm-2q5p-fm63 for the release reference and the vendor's reproduction steps. If upgrading immediately is not possible, take the serve webdav listener out of reach of untrusted clients - bind it to localhost or a management network, or front it with a reverse proxy that normalises request paths before they reach rclone - since the traversal only matters where remote clients can submit MKCOL /... Running the server in read-only mode blocks the attack at the first step, because Dir.Mkdir returns EROFS when the VFS has Opt.ReadOnly set, at the cost of disabling all legitimate uploads. Because reads and enumeration above the served root are already refused, a compromised instance leaks nothing the attacker did not already write, but overwrites and MOVE-out of real tenant data are permanent. Reducing --dir-cache-time does not help: the poisoned node expires but is re-planted by a single request. Where multi-tenant sharing is unavoidable, give each tenant its own rclone process with a served directory whose parent contains no other tenant data.

Affected VersionsENISA

rclone 0 <1.75.2

Affected Packages

euvd rclone fix: 1.75.2

Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)

Affects your stack

Affects 1 package in euvd

Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.

Technical ContextAI · show details

The root cause is CWE-22 relative path traversal arising from a missing normalisation step in the request path before it reaches rclone's VFS layer. golang.org/x/net/webdav's Handler.stripPrefix returns the request path verbatim to a caller-supplied FileSystem - that library has a slashClean helper but applies it only to its own Dir/memFS and lock/prop code, never on the way out - and cmd/serve/webdav/webdav.go mounts the handler on a bare chi.NewRouter() with router.Handle("/*", w) while lib/http/server.go installs no middleware.CleanPath, so MKCOL /.. arrives at WebDAV.Mkdir as the literal name /... WebDAV.Mkdir performs no check at all: it calls VFS.StatParent, which path.Splits "/.." into ("", ".."), resolves the empty parent to the VFS root and passes .. through as a leaf name; Dir.Mkdir then computes path.Join(d.path, name), and because the root's d.path is "" the join yields ".." - the single case where path.Join preserves a dot-dot element (at any deeper directory it collapses to ".", which is why the escape is exactly one level, re-rooted at the served directory's parent). The backend call, e.g. path.Join(f.root, "..") in backend/ftp/ftp.go, collapses to ".", which most backends treat as a no-op returning nil, so the poisoned node is installed on the strength of a success that never happened. Every child path built under that node afterwards is ../<leaf> (Dir.Create, Dir.Rename, File.Path), and the backend then joins it above its configured root. The node is ephemeral - it lives for --dir-cache-time (5 minutes by default) - but it costs one request to re-plant, so lowering the cache time is not a mitigation. Scope is limited to the serve webdav front-end: serve restic, serve s3 and serve docker carry rclone's own path guard, and serve ftp, serve sftp and serve nfs are confined by their third-party libraries instead. Which backend is underneath matters: webdav, ftp, sftp, http and memory backends join the root with the remote before encoding and resolve the .. away, while local and s3 encode dot elements first and were unaffected.

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Severity by source

Vendor (VulnCheck) PRIMARY 8.7 HIGH
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
vuln.today AI 7.5 HIGH

Two unauthenticated low-complexity network requests write, overwrite, and delete files above the served root (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N, I:H); the read path is closed so C:N, and availability is not distinctly impacted.

3.1 AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
4.0 AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Red Hat 7.5 HIGH

Primary rating from Vendor (VulnCheck).

CVSS VectorVendor: VulnCheck

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Attack Requirements
None
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Vulnerable system: Confidentiality
None
Vulnerable system: Integrity
High
Vulnerable system: Availability
None
Subsequent system: Confidentiality
None
Subsequent system: Integrity
None
Subsequent system: Availability
None

Lifecycle Timeline

2
Patch available
Oct 25, 2026 - 14:01 EUVD
CVE Published
Oct 25, 2026 - 13:20 cve.org
HIGH 8.7

DescriptionCVE.org

Rclone before 1.75.2 contains a path traversal vulnerability in serve webdav that allows unauthenticated attackers to write above the served root by sending an unvalidated '..' path component. Attackers can send MKCOL /.. to plant a VFS node, then PUT, MOVE, COPY, or MKCOL to create, overwrite, or delete files belonging to other tenants.

Technical POC Analysis

CWE-22 (relative path traversal) in rclone's own VFS write path, reachable through the serve webdav front-end.

Full technical POC analysis - root cause, step-by-step exploitation and patch breakdown - is part of the Pro and Business plans.

Executive ViewAI

Why It Matters

A high-severity path traversal vulnerability in rclone's WebDAV server (up to version 1.75.1) allows unauthenticated attackers to write files outside the intended directory, compromising data integrity for any organization using this component to share files across tenants. This means attackers could overwrite or delete critical files belonging to other users or systems, potentially disrupting operations and damaging trust, though data confidentiality remains intact as reads above the root are blocked. Leadership should prioritize remediation because a public proof-of-concept reference exists, increasing the likelihood of exploitation.

Business Impact: High
Compensating Controls

No vendor-released patch identified at time of analysis. Interim mitigations: restrict network access to the WebDAV service using IP allowlisting or VPN, enforce strong authentication at the network layer (e.g., reverse proxy with authentication), monitor for and block requests containing '..' in the path, and limit write permissions at the filesystem level to reduce impact.

Threat Intelligence Overview

EPSS Score
0.4%
Top 67% exploitable
Prevalence
Medium
rclone is a popular sync tool, but exposed multi-tenant serve webdav is an uncommon deployment
Social Media
2
Sightings
Data Quality
7 sources
Confidence: High
EUVD NVD CVE.org EPSS Vulnrichment Vendor CIRCL GitHub

How this decision was reached

The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.

SignalValue
Severity HIGH
CISA KEV No
Public POC No
EPSS 0.4%
Patch available Yes
Active threat No
Deciding rule
HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9)
What every action level means
Emergency Immediate action required. Criteria: CRITICAL + in CISA KEV (actively exploited) without patch, OR CRITICAL + EPSS > 30% without patch, OR CRITICAL + active threat signals without patch.
Act Now Prioritize within 24-48h. Criteria: in KEV with patch available, OR CRITICAL + public POC, OR HIGH + EPSS > 10%, OR CRITICAL + active threat, OR any CRITICAL severity.
This Week Schedule remediation this week. Criteria: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9). Patch within normal change window.
This Month Plan within 30 days. Criteria: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9), lower exploitation probability. Include in regular patch cycle.
Monitor Track and reassess. Criteria: LOW severity (CVSS 0.1-3.9), minimal exploitation risk. No immediate action needed.

SSVC AssessmentENISA

SSVC Decision
Scheduled
Exploitation
None
System Exposure· derived
Open
Automatable
Yes
Human Impact
High
Technical Impact
Partial

Priority Score

44
Low Medium High Critical
KEV: 0
EPSS: 0
CVSS: +44
PoC: 0
Weaponized: 0
Threat intel: 0
Gov advisory: 0

Attack Technique

Path traversal exploits occur when applications use user-controlled input to construct file system paths without proper validation.

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