CVE-2008-2938 Apache Tomcat Directory Traversal vulnerability

What is CVE-2008-2938?

CVE-2008-2938 is a medium-severity path traversal vulnerability in Apache Tomcat, published on 13 Aug 2008. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Directory traversal vulnerability in Apache Tomcat 4.1.0 through 4.1.37, 5.5.0 through 5.5.26, and 6.0.0 through 6.0.16, when allowLinking and UTF-8 are enabled, allows remote attackers to read arbitrary files via encoded directory traversal sequences in the URI, a different vulnerability than CVE-2008-2370. NOTE: versions earlier than 6.0.18 were reported affected, but the vendor advisory lists 6.0.16 as the last affected version.

Weakness: CWE-22

Which versions are affected by CVE-2008-2938?

6 open source packages ship an affected version, including org.apache.tomcat:tomcat. It affects 1 product.

Products include Apache Tomcat.

How do I fix CVE-2008-2938?

Upgrade org.apache.tomcat:tomcat to a fixed version for your release line: 4.1.39, 5.5.27 or 6.0.18.

Upgrade, and resolve every user-supplied path against an allowed base folder before opening it. More about Path traversal.

Is CVE-2008-2938 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2008-2938 exists.

Public exploit code: 2 Metasploit modules, 2 Exploit-DB entries and 1 proofs of concept on GitHub.

Other vulnerabilities in Apache Tomcat

• CVE-2025-24813 Apache Tomcat Path Equivalence Exploited Critical 10.0
• CVE-2016-8735 Apache Tomcat Remote Code Execution Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2017-12617 Apache Tomcat Remote Code Execution Exploited High 8.1
• CVE-2017-12615 Apache Tomcat on Windows Remote Code Execution Exploited High 8.1
• CVE-2026-34486 Apache Tomcat Missing Encryption of Sensitive Data Exploited High 7.5

All Apache Tomcat vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as GHSA-m7xj-ccqc-p4g2.