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Glossary: Application and Credential Attacks, and AI Risks

directory traversal

Also written: path traversal

An attack that puts ../ in a file path to climb out of the web root and read other files, such as /etc/passwd. A traversal request answered with status 200 means the file was sent.

Where the book teaches it

Related terms

../ (dot-dot-slash)web rootURL encodingTraversal target files (/etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, win.ini)HTTP status codes