CWE-552

Base Abstraction Level
Pillar — Highest-level weakness category
Class — Abstract, language-independent
Base — Specific enough to detect
Variant — Tied to specific technology
Compound — Requires multiple weaknesses Draft MITRE CWE Status
Stable — Fully reviewed and complete
Draft — Under development, may change
Incomplete — Partially defined by MITRE
Deprecated — No longer recommended
Obsolete — Replaced by another CWE
Files or Directories Accessible to External Parties

Description

The product makes files or directories accessible to unauthorized actors, even though they should not be.

Web servers, FTP servers, and similar servers may store a set of files underneath a "root" directory that is accessible to the server's users. Applications may store sensitive files underneath this root without also using access control to limit which users may request those files, if any. Alternately, an application might package multiple files or directories into an archive file (e.g., ZIP or tar), but the application might not exclude sensitive files that are underneath those directories. In cloud technologies and containers, this weakness might present itself in the form of misconfigured storage accounts that can be read or written by a public or anonymous user.

Top Monitored CVEs

CVE-2020-17519
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7.5 97.9%
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CVE-2025-11371
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CVE-2024-53676
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CVE-2021-25741
HIGH
8.1 6.5%
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CVE-2021-32688
HIGH
8.8 2.3%
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CVE-2023-5199
CRITICAL
9.9 1.4%
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Consequences

Confidentiality, Integrity — Read Files or Directories, Modify Files or Directories

Mitigations

Phase: Implementation, System Configuration, Operation

When storing data in the cloud (e.g., S3 buckets, Azure blobs, Google Cloud Storage, etc.), use the provider's controls to disable public access.

Detection

Automated Static Analysis

Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.)