An adversary with access to file system resources, either directly or via application logic, will use various file absolute paths and navigation mechanisms such as ".." to extend their range of access to inappropriate areas of the file system. The goal of the adversary is to access directories and files that are intended to be restricted from their access.
Design: Configure the access control correctly. | Design: Enforce principle of least privilege. | Design: Execute programs with constrained privileges, so parent process does not open up further vulnerabilities. Ensure that all directories, temporary directories and files, and memory are executing with limited privileges to protect against remote execution. | Design: Input validation. Assume that user inputs are malicious. Utilize strict type, character, and encoding enforcement. | Design: Proxy communication to host, so that communications are terminated at the proxy, sanitizing the requests before forwarding to server host.