CVE-2014-3626: The Grails Resource Plugin often has to exchange URIs for resources with other internal components. Those other components will decode any URI passed ...

Description

The Grails Resource Plugin often has to exchange URIs for resources with other internal components. Those other components will decode any URI passed to them. To protect against directory traversal the Grails Resource Plugin did the following: normalized the URI, checked the normalized URI did not step outside the appropriate root directory (e.g. the web application root), decoded the URI and checked that this did not introduce additional /../ (and similar) sequences. A bug was introduced where the Grails Resource Plugin before 1.2.13 returned the decoded version of the URI rather than the normalized version of the URI after the directory traversal check. This exposed a double decoding vulnerability. To address this issue, the Grails Resource Plugin now repeatedly decodes the URI up to three times or until decoding no longer changes the URI. If the decode limit of 3 is exceeded the URI is rejected. A side-effect of this is that the Grails Resource Plugin is unable to serve a resource that includes a '%' character in the full path to the resource. Not all environments are vulnerable because of the differences in URL resolving in different servlet containers. Applications deployed to Tomcat 8 and Jetty 9 were found not not be vulnerable, however applications deployed to JBoss EAP 6.3 / JBoss AS 7.4 and JBoss AS 7.1 were found to be vulnerable (other JBoss versions weren't tested). In certain cases JBoss returns JBoss specific vfs protocol urls from URL resolution methods (ClassLoader.getResources). The JBoss vfs URL protocol supports resolving any file on the filesystem. This made the directory traversal possible. There may be other containers, in addition to JBoss, on which this vulnerability is exposed.

Metrics

EPSS Probability

1.74%

74.9th percentile

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days. Learn more

Weakness Enumeration

CWE-22

Affected Software

Vendor	Product	Versions
Grails	Resources	>= 1.2.0, <= 1.2.12

References

https://pivotal.io/security/cve-2014-3626Third Party Advisory
https://pivotal.io/security/cve-2014-3626Third Party Advisory

Timeline

Published: Mar 19, 2018
Last Modified: Jun 17, 2026
Status: Modified

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2014-3626?

The Grails Resource Plugin often has to exchange URIs for resources with other internal components. Those other components will decode any URI passed to them. To protect against directory traversal the Grails Resource Plugin did the following: normalized the URI, checked the normalized URI did not step outside the appropriate root directory (e.g. the web application root), decoded the URI and checked that this did not introduce additional /../ (and similar) sequences. A bug was introduced where the Grails Resource Plugin before 1.2.13 returned the decoded version of the URI rather than the normalized version of the URI after the directory traversal check. This exposed a double decoding vulnerability. To address this issue, the Grails Resource Plugin now repeatedly decodes the URI up to three times or until decoding no longer changes the URI. If the decode limit of 3 is exceeded the URI is rejected. A side-effect of this is that the Grails Resource Plugin is unable to serve a resource that includes a '%' character in the full path to the resource. Not all environments are vulnerable because of the differences in URL resolving in different servlet containers. Applications deployed to Tomcat 8 and Jetty 9 were found not not be vulnerable, however applications deployed to JBoss EAP 6.3 / JBoss AS 7.4 and JBoss AS 7.1 were found to be vulnerable (other JBoss versions weren't tested). In certain cases JBoss returns JBoss specific vfs protocol urls from URL resolution methods (ClassLoader.getResources). The JBoss vfs URL protocol supports resolving any file on the filesystem. This made the directory traversal possible. There may be other containers, in addition to JBoss, on which this vulnerability is exposed.

How severe is CVE-2014-3626?

Severity scoring for CVE-2014-3626 is pending analysis. The EPSS model estimates a 1.74% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.

How do I fix CVE-2014-3626?

Check the vendor references and advisories linked above for patched versions and mitigation guidance. You can also run a Strix scan to test if your systems are affected.

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