CVE-2010-3718 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory in Apache Tomcat

What is CVE-2010-3718?

CVE-2010-3718 is a low-severity path traversal vulnerability in Apache Tomcat, published on 10 Feb 2011. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Apache Tomcat 7.0.0 through 7.0.3, 6.0.x, and 5.5.x, when running within a SecurityManager, does not make the ServletContext attribute read-only, which allows local web applications to read or write files outside of the intended working directory, as demonstrated using a directory traversal attack.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2010-3718?

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-2010-3718?

Upgrade org.apache.tomcat:tomcat to a fixed version for your release line: 5.5.30, 6.0.30 or 7.0.4.

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

Is CVE-2010-3718 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2010-3718 in the wild and no public exploit code.

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-fj6c-prgj-gr3r.