What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-73255: Mongoose: Path traversal in SSI #include directives enables arbitrary file read

• Severity: medium (CVSS 6.5 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.7% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: yes
• Published: 2026-08-20 · updated 2026-10-18
• Weakness: CWE-22

Description

Mongoose is an embedded web server and network library. Prior to 7.22, an attacker who can control an SSI-enabled file can place directory traversal sequences in an #include file or #include virtual directive. The mg_ssi() function in src/ssi.c concatenates the directive argument into a filesystem path without calling mg_path_is_sane(), allowing an MG_ENABLE_SSI deployment with ssi_pattern configured to disclose files readable by the Mongoose process. This issue is fixed in version 7.22.

Affected products

• Cesanta Mongoose: before 7.22 — fixed in 7.22

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Cesanta Mongoose 7.22. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://github.com/cesanta/mongoose/commit/a9df523f76f43a38bd53b4232b9cfd4c16869e71
• https://github.com/cesanta/mongoose/pull/3611
• https://github.com/cesanta/mongoose/releases/tag/7.22
• https://github.com/cesanta/mongoose/security/advisories/GHSA-h7m9-764r-7x4x

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