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GHSA-88g4-74f3-63x9: phpMyFAQ has Potential Authenticated Path Traversal in PDF Export

mediumCVSS 4.9
Summary There is an authenticated path traversal condition in the PDF export functionality, specifically within the PDF image resolution logic. The issue may allow a privileged FAQ editor to cause the application to attempt reading files outside the intended content directory during PDF generation. Affected Component File: src/phpMyFAQ/Export/Pdf/Wrapper.php Function: concatenatePaths() Root Cause The path resolution logic relies on locating the substring "content" within a user-controlled path: $pos = strpos($trimmedFile, 'content'); $relativePath = substr($trimmedFile, (int) $pos); If "content" is not present, strpos() returns false, which becomes 0 when cast to an integer. As a result, the entire attacker-controlled path is preserved. Example: $trimmedFile = "../../../etc/passwd"; $pos = false; $relativePath = "../../../etc/passwd"; The resulting path is later processed by: file_get_contents($resolvedPath); without canonicalization or a root-directory containment check. Observed Data Flow FAQ Content -> PDF Export -> WriteHTML() -> Wrapper::Image() -> concatenatePaths() -> file_get_contents() Potential Impact Based on code review, a user with FAQ editing privileges may be able to store HTML containing crafted image paths that are processed during PDF generation. Potential consequences may include: - Path traversal outside the intended content directory - Local file read attempts during PDF export - Possible disclosure of readable files depending on file type, sanitization behavior, and PDF rendering constraints Discovery Method This issue was initially detected by an internally developed SAST tool during analysis of the phpMyFAQ source code. The finding was then manually investigated and validated through code review. While the original scanner output classified the issue as a generic path traversal/local file inclusion pattern, manual analysis identified the specific root cause in the path resolution logic of concatenatePaths(). Potenti

Details

Source
GitHub Security Advisories (INTL · database · site)
Severity
medium — CVSS 4.9
Published
2026-08-25
Last updated
2026-08-25
Exploitation
Not in CISA KEV at last sync

Original advisory: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-88g4-74f3-63x9

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