CVE-2026-33929

Apache PDFBox Examples: Path Traversal in PDFBox ExtractEmbeddedFiles Example Code

State: Published
Severity: 4.3 Medium
Published: Apr 14, 2026
Updated: Apr 14, 2026
Reserved: Mar 24, 2026

Description

Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') vulnerability in Apache PDFBox Examples.

This issue affects the ExtractEmbeddedFiles example in Apache PDFBox: from 2.0.24 through 2.0.36, from 3.0.0 through 3.0.7.

Users are recommended to update to version 2.0.37 or 3.0.8 once available. Until then, they should apply the fix provided in GitHub PR 427.

The ExtractEmbeddedFiles example contained a path traversal vulnerability (CWE-22) mentioned in CVE-2026-23907. However the change in the releases 2.0.36 and 3.0.7 is flawed because it doesn't consider the file path separator. Because of that, a user having writing rights on /home/ABC could be victim to a malicious PDF resulting in a write attempt to any path starting with /home/ABC, e.g. "/home/ABCDEF".

Users who have copied this example into their production code should apply the mentioned change. The example has been changed accordingly and is available in the project repository.

Scores

CVSS	Score	Vector	Source
3.1	4.3 Medium	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N	CISA-ADP

Weaknesses

CWE-22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

Affected Products

Product	Versions
Apache PDFBox ExamplesApache Software Foundation	2.0.24 through 2.0.36Affected 3.0.0 through 3.0.7Affected

References

https://github.com/apache/pdfbox/pull/427/changespatch
https://lists.apache.org/thread/op3lyx1ngzy4qycn06l6hljyf28ff0zsmailing-list
https://lists.apache.org/thread/j8l07tgzy9dm8d8n0f3c45h7zg7t3ld6vendor-advisory

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